The government has asked EDF to study the scenario of increasing the power of its existing reactors to restore its electricity production after a dark year 2022 that saw it fall to its lowest level in 30 years.
The state shareholder asks the national electricity company to produce more, optimizing the capacities of its existing nuclear park, made up of 56 reactors put into service between 1979 and 2002.
“I asked EDF to study an increase in the power of the French nuclear fleet, in conjunction with the ASN,” the Nuclear Safety Authority, Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher confirmed to AFP after speaking at The world Tuesday.
The issue is also crucial for EDF, in the midst of a renationalization process, and whose nuclear production has been falling for years, reaching its lowest level in 30 years with 279 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2022 due to work related to corrosion problems.
The executive’s decision was made on February 3 during a Nuclear Policy Council (CPN) convened by President Emmanuel Macron. It is this same nuclear policy council that had acted in the greatest secrecy on the contested reform of nuclear security.
shorten maintenance
This measure to increase power “could contribute to increasing the production of nuclear energy, which is still below its potential,” estimates the ministry.
Specifically, it is about earning margins regardless of the construction of six next-generation EPR reactors, the first of which is scheduled for 2035-2037… at best.
The study will focus on “the three levels (categories, editor’s note) of existing nuclear reactors,” which supply the French with most of their power: the 900 MW levels and the more recent 1,300 MW and 1,450 MW levels. .
Increasing capacities would allow power gains of the order of “4-5%” for certain reactors, Sylvie Richard, director of EDF’s large shroud program, estimated in late March.
“Every megawatt is good to drink,” he pleaded during a visit to the Saint-Laurent-des-Eaux (Loir-et-Cher) nuclear power plant.
If these modifications were decided on the entire park with a total installed capacity of 61.4 GW, an increase of 3% in production would be equivalent to adding the equivalent to the power of “two reactors”, indicated the minister in turn. the echoes On March 1
Increases authorized abroad
According to the ministry, the investigation will be carried out “by the end of 2023” and “will be the subject of a progress report at the year-end nuclear policy council.”
But for the moment, the ASN tells AFP that it has not yet “received a file from EDF on this issue.”
“Power increases abroad have been authorized” and this solution had also been “considered” for a while by EDF “on the occasion of the third periodic review of the 1300 MW reactors” started in 2015, but this has not had ” no follow up”. up”, specifies the nuclear policeman.
Specifically, the technical study will mainly evaluate the possible modifications in the secondary circuit, where the steam produced in the primary circuit is sent to the gigantic turbines of the turbo-alternator to be transformed into electricity.
Why the secondary circuit in priority? Because “security issues should be less structural than in the primary circuit”, the part that houses the nuclear fuel, advances the ministry.
But that is not all. The government intends to work on reducing the duration of maintenance stoppages and on “operational excellence” to raise EDF production to a range between 350 and 380 TWh in the coming years, that is, an increase of about 30%. EDF would still be far from its golden age when it produced 430 TWh, like in 2005.
Such modification or optimization costs would add to the total bill for the big fairing, this colossal program that aims to modernize and extend the life of power plants beyond 40 years. Its reassessed cost is around 66,000 million euros.
Source: BFM TV
