Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant

History

2024: Failure of €13bn nuclear reactor project

On September 5, 2024, the French state-owned electric power company EDF announced that its specialists were conducting technical checks after the new EPR nuclear reactor at the Flamanville nuclear power plant automatically stopped just a day after the first launch attempt. Initial diagnostic data indicates that the incident "may be related to an incorrect installation configuration."

Flamanville NPP is located in northwestern France on the shores of the English Channel. The plant consists of two power units, which are equipped with pressurized water reactors (PWR) P4 developed by Framatome. The electric capacity of each of them is 1300 MW. Since 2007, the NPP has been working on the construction of the third generation EPR reactor developed by Areva: its design capacity is 1650 MW.

source = Wikipedia

The construction of the EPR (European Pressurized Reactor) was expected to last 4.5 years, and commissioning was originally scheduled for 2012. However, due to numerous technical difficulties, the timing of the reactor launch was repeatedly revised. At the same time, the project budget grew from the initial €3.3 billion to €13.2 billion. Moreover, this amount is also not final: the total costs, according to experts, can reach €19 billion.

On September 2, 2024, EDF announced the start of the first procedure for dispersing the nuclear reaction in the EPR reactor. However, on the second day of operation, the installation automatically turned off. According to an EDF spokesperson, starting the reactor is a lengthy process, and the EPR is a complex system that is being commissioned in France for the first time. Therefore, various technical problems are not excluded. At the first stage, EDF expects to reach a power level of 25%, at which the reactor is planned to be connected to the French power grid.^[1]

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