EDF announced Friday, December 16 an additional delay of six months for the commissioning of its EPR nuclear reactor located in Flamanville, in the Channel. It must now start by mid-2024 instead of the end of 2023, with a new additional cost of 500 million euros.
These six additional months, which bring the delay to 12 years in relation to the start date initially planned, result in the total cost of the project, under construction since 2007, rising from 12.7 to 13.2 billion euros.
Revision of “complex” welding procedures
The new delay is due to the necessary revision of treatment procedures for some 150 welds « complexes »within the main secondary circuit of the reactor, explained to the press the director of the Flamanville 3 project, Alain Morvan.
The problem appeared this summer, when it was necessary to carry out the heat treatment of “relaxation” welds: the process used revealed a “behavioral non-compliance” sensitive materials nearby, affected by excessively high temperatures.
“We had valve temperature behavior that did not conform to what we expected”explained Alain Morvan. “We stopped the heat treatment last summer and resumed studies to define a method, and carried out tests to guarantee the correct level of performance of these heat treatments”he specified.
“These files have been presented to Bureau Veritas, which is analyzing them, and by the end of the year we will have authorization to resume so-called complex heat treatments”said the director of the project.
These operations should therefore be able to resume at the beginning of 2023, but the entire project schedule is upset: the loading of fuel is now announced for the 1st quarter of 2024.
Then, the reactor will send its first electrons to the lattice when it has reached nearly 25% of its power, “about three months later”, so by mid-2024, rather than the end of 2023 as previously planned. The 500 million euros in additional costs are mainly related to maintaining staff and companies on site, said the EDF manager.