Stephen Mahe via Archyde.com
ELECTRICITY – Will France be subject to power cuts during the winter? With five nuclear reactors already at a standstill, to which were added three new reactors this Tuesday, February 8, EDF is in a delicate new position, having been forced by the state to breaking the selling price of electricity to its competitors in early January.
EDF’s discovery of traces of corrosion in reactors several French power plants will henceforth require extensive interventions to check the condition of all its infrastructure.
And the main consequence of these chain stoppages is a significant slowdown in the production ofelectricity in the middle of winter. In all, 20% of the French nuclear fleet is currently at a standstill, while this energy produces almost three-quarters of the electricity in France.
“No risk of widespread blackout”
It was last December that this corrosion problem was identified for the first time at the Civaux power station in the Vienne, in fact leading to a series of checks on other power plants in France. The autorité de la sûreté nucléaire also called these corrosion detections “a serious event”.
However, RTE (manager of the high-voltage electricity transmission network in France) sure on February 4 that a “blackout scenario involving a widespread loss of power supply on the territory” was not to be considered during this winter 2022 – and this even in the event of “a significant additional deterioration in the availability of the production fleet”.
The optimist is also on the side of the Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili who ensured this Tuesday, February 8 at the microphone of France Info that “there will be no risk of a widespread blackout in France this winter”.
To compensate for this significant lack of production, France has already chosen to relaunch the last factories in the coal, somewhat relaxing the limits on their use for the month of January and February 2022.
“A margin of maneuver” according to the Minister, which justifies this very greedy energy recovery in greenhouse gas emissions, even if she reminds me that coal represents “2 to 3% of our electricity production” and “0.2% of our greenhouse gas emissions”.
The risk of seeing the French spend evenings by candlelight seems to be ruled out, especially since the import of energy has reached levels rarely seen in recent months in France, while France is rather used to exporting because of its varied energy stock.
Mild weather?
The only shadow on the board for the coming weeks and months: the cold and the vagaries of winter weather. Indeed, the ”room for manoeuvre” mentioned by Barbara Pompili is also aimed at anticipating a cold wave during the end of winter, which would significantly increase the electricity consumption of French homes.
Here again, EDF, via its subsidiary RTE, is reassuring in its report for the most greedy period of the year: “Even if the temperatures observed were generally below the seasonal norm, France has not encountered a situation of extreme cold”. But RTE believes that it is necessary to maintain “the vigilance diagnosis for the month of February”.
However, RTE does not exclude targeted cuts of consumers if a cold wave (of the order of 4 ° C below normal) crossed France before the arrival of spring. The EDF subsidiary also indicates that these hypothetical cuts would have “a localized and limited impact in time”, i.e. a maximum of two consecutive hours. And also specifies that “sensitive consumers” will be spared, especially the health sector, essential in times of pandemic Covid-19.
Towards a new nuclear debate
But if the French remain unaffected by the cuts for the current winter, the corrosion problems reported at French power plants could, if they are proven, lead to a new questioning about the future of nuclear power in France as part of the election campaign for the presidential 2022.
Coincidentally, this Thursday, February 10, Emmanuel Macron is to announce a substantial nuclear recovery plan during a trip to Belfort, as he announced last November. And under echo, which quotes a source close to the file “Emmanuel Macron will confirm the construction ofEPR and could go beyond six”.
However, the head of state who is counting on a re-election next May to set up these great announcements for the sector, may well be facing a new substantive debate raised by this corrosion.
Opponents of this energy have a new argument: if the corrosion identified on the safety circuits of the reactors does not prevent the operation of the French power plants in any way, it poses a nuclear safety problem. Indeed, the affected circuits serve to prevent the risks of nuclear accidents by allowing the reactor to be drowned if the latter were to melt.
And since the risks associated with nuclear accidents are never zero, they could pose a major problem for the French industry in the near future if other power plants notice this phenomenon of corrosion. In all, eleven reactors will be closed in 2022, without visibility on the date of their reopening, suspended to the conclusions that EDF will draw from the analyses carried out on its reactors.
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