It was announced last week as a first real test for the French power grid. In fact it will have been, EDF even leaving some feathers there. A week earlier, the power company had restarted as many as four nuclear reactors, weekly statistics that it had never shown since the launch of our energy dashboard before the start of the school year. But in recent days, the company has made only slight progress on its program to revive the nuclear fleet and has 14 reactors still shut down with Gravelines 3 restarting this Saturday, up from 16 last Monday.
With two more infrastructures due to restart this week, EDF should start 2023 with 12 reactors still closed, the vast majority immobilized by stress corrosion (SCC) problems to which routine maintenance is added. . Two sites have had their restart dates pushed back, namely Flamanville from December 25 to February 19 and Penly 1 from February 13 to March 20. In the first case, the replacement of worn out steam generators has just finished with the last of the four hydraulic tests that must be declared compliant.
EDF is already extracting water from the reservoirs
Thanks to the particularly mild temperatures for much of the autumn, the water dams and gas reserves were able to fill up to their maximum level or, in any case, approach their historical average. But the recent episode of cold that crossed the territory forced France to activate these two levers of electricity production, in addition to imports, to complete nuclear production.
Thus, the fill rate of EDF’s water tanks fell 4 points in one week and is now 61%, more than 6 points below normal. In detail, no geographical area has been spared. With 72%, the dams of the Northern Alps registered a drop of 5 points that reduced their advantage over the normal ones (6.5 points against 9.5 points last week). The decrease is also significant for the sites of the Pyrenees and the Massif Central which are respectively filled to 55 (-3 points) and 53% (-6 points). Only the dams in the Southern Alps contained this drop with a fill rate of 60% versus 61% last week, but they are nonetheless significantly below normal at 14.5 points below them.
Source: BFM TV
