“An extension of the social movement” in nuclear power plants “would have serious consequences” on electricity supply au “heart of winter”. The strike was followed in the power stations on Tuesday, October 18: 17 units were shut down due to the social conflict and three were subject to a reduction in load according to the CGT. RTE, the network manager, warned that same day of the risks that could be posed by a hardening of the movement on the recovery plan for reactors shut down for maintenance or work. In total, 27 of the 56 in the French fleet are not working to date.
These social movements have already had the effect of extending the shutdown of these reactors by two to three weeks. And it could be even longer. “If the impact of the strikes does not call into question, to date, the central trajectory presented by RTE for the months of December and January, [il] nevertheless poses a real threat to the availability of the fleet during the month of November, by delaying by two to three weeks the numerous restarts expected around All Saints’ Day”, emphasizes Thomas Veyrenc, director of strategy, forecasting and evaluation at RTE. Consequence: the network operator has combined its winter vigilance scenario for the beginning of November with a “negative outlook”.
Good progress of repairs
Apart from this unknown, “this monthly revaluation as a whole contains more favorable than unfavorable news”, however, we wanted to put it into perspective at RTE, also taking into account the good progress of repairs to the pipes and corrosion (cracks). These jobs “have been completed on some reactors, and on the way to completion on others”specifies the manager of the network, according to which these advances “give credibility to the prospect of a level of 45 GW” au 1is January, a forecast advanced last September. At 1is November, the manager is counting on nuclear production of 29 gigawatts (GW), then 38 GW on 1is december. By way of comparison, the availability of the French nuclear fleet stood at around 46% on Tuesday, or 28.5 GW out of a total of 61.4 GW of installed capacity.
Another positive factor, which makes it possible to approach winter more serenely, is hydraulic storage. In this area, despite historically low river levels, most dams should globally be able to to produce this winter during peak consumption.
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