“Due to Rhône’s high temperature forecasts, production restrictions are likely to affect the EDF Nuclear Production Park,” said the French electrician group in an information message on Monday, June 23. In total, 14 power plants are potentially affected.
Certain Nuclear Centrals of EDF, particularly those of Bugy and Saint-Alban, Rhône refoides, could be significantly affected in their operation by the warm climate this summer, while the departments of the Rhône and the Isère are placed in the “heat wave” orange by Météo-France from Sunday.
Flow and warm thresholds to protect fauna and flora
France has 56 reactors, 30 of which are in closed circuit and 26 in open circuit. The first capture very little water (2 m3 per second that mainly reject in the atmosphere in the form of steam). The latter need much more water (40 to 50 m3 captured per second) that completely reject in the rivers.
It is the nuclear centrals that operate in “open circuit” those that are the first worried in the case of a heat wave (Tricinin, Blayais, Saint-Alban, reactors No. 2 and Bugy No. 3, Bugy, Fessenheim before closing).
Nuclear power plants pump water from adjacent rivers (or in the sea, if necessary) for cooling before rejecting it. The temperature of this rejected water is framed by the heating and flow of water courses that are not exceeded. These thresholds are specific to each energy plant and aim to protect fauna and flora.
When the warm or debit threshold of a river used by a nuclear energy plant for cooling leaves the fixed thresholds, it is no longer possible to drink and reject water in this river for the cooling of the energy plant.
A fall in habitual production without risks
For several years, in a global warming context, EDF has been forced to almost all summer to reduce the production of several of its power plants to respect the regulatory thresholds.
For example, downstream of the Saint-Alban Energy Station (ISère), Rhône’s water temperature should not exceed 28 ° C in summer, which had forced EDF to stop both reactors in the summer of 2018 during the warm climate.
However, this fall in production is not afraid of a shortage of electricity. “Summer is a period in which consumption is low and the volumes in question are low,” reassures Nicolas Goldberg, an electricity expert, contacted by BFM Business. The latter also recalls that “France is currently excessively depressed in electricity production” and, therefore, does not run a “risk” of cuts.
According to EDF, since 2000, nuclear production losses for environmental causes (high temperature and low river flow) represented 0.3% of the annual production of the nuclear fleet on average.
Source: BFM TV
