The nuclear safety authority (ASN) has accepted that EDF postpone until 2025 the replacement of the defective lid of the EPR reactor vessel in Flamanville, which should enter service in the first quarter of 2024, after a 12-year delay, indicated this Friday the nuclear safety watchdog. . The ASN explained that “replacing the vessel lid before the reactor is commissioned would lead to a delay of about a year”.
So far, the security authority had set December 31, 2024 as the deadline for the replacement of the cover, which would have forced EDF to close its EPR just a few months after its commissioning, scheduled for the first quarter of the next year. In a May 16 decision published on its website on Friday, the ASN therefore agreed to wait for a first complete cycle of operation of the EPR, that is, between “15 and 18 months” before changing the part, as had been done, asks the nuclear builder. Phramatome. The replacement of the bowl lid, which presents “manufacturing anomalies”, must therefore be supported by a first general maintenance visit scheduled for 2025. It will last between 4 and 9 months depending on the EDF operator.
A delayed start of 12 years
The deadline for the replacement of the cover had been set by the ASN in 2018, but at the time the start-up of the reactor was scheduled for autumn 2019. The start-up of the reactor is now scheduled for the first quarter of the year 2024”, recalls the ASN. The ASN specifies that “in the event that the project again suffers a significant delay, the operator must reassess the possibility of replacing the lid before starting up the reactor.”
After a new delay of 6 months announced in December, the start-up of this reactor, the first of this generation planned on French soil, will take place 12 years after the initial planning. These delays have triggered the bill for the project, launched in 2007, and which now amounts to 13.2 billion euros, according to EDF, four times the initial budget of 3.3 billion euros.
Source: BFM TV
