Welding problems have caused a further six-month delay for France’s next-generation nuclear reactor at Flamanville, the latest setback for the flagship technology the country hopes to sell worldwide, state-owned electricity group Electricite de France SA (EDF) said on Friday.
The delay is also expected to add 500 million euros (US$529.92 billion) to a project whose total cost is now estimated at around 13 billion euros, blowing past the initial projection of 3.3 billion euros when construction began in 2007.
It comes as EDF is struggling to restart dozens of nuclear reactors that were shut for maintenance or safety work, which has proved more challenging than originally thought.
Photo: EPA-EFE
EDF also said that one of the two conventional reactors at Flamanville would not be brought back online until Feb. 19 instead of next week as planned, while one at Penly in northwest Farnce would be restarted on March 20 instead of in January.
The French government has said that power shortages might occur this winter because of the shutdowns at about 25 of the 56 reactors across the country that normally generate about 70 percent of the country’s electricity needs.
EDF said the latest problems at Flamanville, on the English Channel in Normandy, emerged last summer when engineers discovered that welds in cooling pipes for the new European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) were not tolerating extreme heat as expected.
As a result, the new reactor cannot start generating power until mid-2024.
The French-developed EPR was designed to relaunch nuclear power in Europe after the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe in Russia, and is touted as offering more efficient power output and better safety.
However, similar projects at Olkiluoto in Finland, Hinkley Point in Britain and the Taishan plant in China have also experienced production setbacks and delays, raising doubts about the viability of the new technology.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in February that he is aiming for a nuclear “renaissance” in which up to 14 new reactors would be built in France, as the country seeks to reduce its use of fossil fuels.
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