Flamanville EPR: EDF believes it can avoid Taishan's problems

EDF thinks it has found solutions for its EPR reactor at Flamanville to the three problems that forced a Chinese EPR into a long shutdown, but the examination of these proposals by the French nuclear police will last several months.

The solutions "have been presented to the safety authority (ASN) and are under investigation (...). The investigation will continue throughout the year 2022", declared during a public meeting Alain Morvan, director of the reactor under construction at Flamanville.

"A file has been submitted. Additional information has been requested by ASN," Gaëtan Lafforgue, deputy head of the Normandy division of ASN, told AFP, confirming that the opinion of the nuclear policeman was a question "of month".

EDF has proposed "solutions" to each of the "three" technical problems that have emerged in Taishan, and have resulted in the shutdown of an EPR reactor for eleven months, said Mr. Morvan. It was the first EPR in the world to have started up, in December 2018.

EDF will in particular replace 64 of the 241 fuel assemblies necessary to start the Flamanville reactor with assemblies modified according to one of the Taishan problems. The company has already started manufacturing these new fuels.

The 64 fuels removed will be used later in places in the reactor core where they do not pose a problem, Morvan said.

Mr. Morvan was speaking before the local information committee of the Flamanville nuclear power plant which was held Thursday at Les Pieux, a town adjoining that of the power plant. The ASN, trade unionists, local elected officials and ecologists took part.

Taishan reactor 1 "should theoretically restart soon. They made the request", also assured Yannick Rousselet of Greenpeace France during the CLI. The 2nd Taishan EPR reactor, the only one in operation in the world, is operating "at 30% right away", according to the anti-nuclear activist.

At Olkiluoto in Finland, the commissioning of the EPR has been postponed until December, its operator announced in mid-June.

President Emmanuel Macron announced on February 10 a construction program for six other EPRs in France.

The Flamanville site is ten years behind schedule. Its cost rose to 12,4 billion according to EDF, 19 billion according to the Court of Auditors.