You are missing a few welds and everything is postponed. EDF announces six months delay additional for the commissioning of its EPR nuclear reactor in Flamanville (Manche), which must now start up by mid-2024 instead of the end of 2023, with a new additional cost of 500 million euros. The new delay is due to the necessary revision of processing 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.
These six months additional which bring the delay to twelve years in relation to the starting date initially planned, result in a total cost of the project, under construction since 2007, increasing from 12.7 to 13.2 billion euros.
The problem appeared this summer, when it was necessary to carry out the heat treatment of “relaxation» of welds: the process used revealed a “behavioral non-compliance” sensitive equipment nearby, affected by excessively high temperatures, according to EDF.
“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”, adds Alain Morvan. “These files have been presented to Bureau Veritas, which analyzes them, and by the end of the year we will have the authorization to resume the so-called “complex” heat treatments.“, continues the director of the project.
Retention of staff and businesses
These operations should therefore be able to resume at the beginning of 2023, but the entire project schedule is upset: fuel loading is now announced for the 1st quarter of 2024. Then, the reactor will send its first electrons to the network 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.