The day after Christmas, EDF gives a push. At the beginning of December, the energy company had managed to restart four nuclear reactors, but it was stopped last week due to the revision of the restart dates of Flamanville 1 and Penly 1, postponed respectively to February 19 and 20 of next March. . By completing routine maintenance work on Saint-Alban 2, Gravelines 3 and Cruas 3 this weekend, as well as Cattenom 4 today, Monday December 26, EDF now has only 13 infrastructures closed. A number that should even drop to 12 with the restart of Dampierre 2 scheduled for the day after tomorrow.
While routine maintenance work will continue to be numerous in 2023, it will nevertheless be accompanied by checks and repairs related to the phenomenon of stress corrosion cracking. Four reactors will be restarted in January and the same number in February, then another two in March and finally the last two only in June. In fact, Penly 2 and Golfech 1 have seen their dates pushed back respectively from January 29 and February 18 to June 11.
The situation is improving for water dams.
While the cold snap had forced France to draw on its water reserves to meet the previous week’s strong demand for electricity, the stock fill rate had fallen four points to 61%. Recent rains have slightly increased these water reservoirs, which are now 62% full. Above all, they are only three points below normal, a difference of half that of last Monday.
In detail, the geographical areas have experienced various novelties in recent days. The reservoirs of the Northern Alps are still in the lead but with a filling rate slightly below 71% (-1 point) but they are far from the historical averages (-8.5 points compared to -6.5 points last Monday ). The level of the dams in the Pyrenees also decreased, from 55 to 53%, but their difference with the normal ones was below the threshold of 10 points. On the side of the Southern Alps, its filling increases to 62% while the gap with the normal ones is now close to 10 points. Finally, the Massif Central dams are going from 53 to 57% fill rate and are now only 5 small points away from historical averages.
Source: BFM TV
