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Further delays for Flamanville
EDF has announced that it expects the construction costs for its delayed Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor being built on the north coast of France to reach €10.5bn, up from its previous estimate of €8.5bn. It has also pushed the start-up date of the plant back from 2017 to late 2018.
The new estimates mark considerable departures from the original plan for the 1.6 GW plant to be completed in 2012 at a cost of €3.3bn.
EDF released a statement saying that 98% of the building civil structure has been completed, along with 60% of the electromechanical work. Under the new schedule the plant’s primary circuit is to be completed in the first quarter of 2016. System performance testing will begin a year later and loading of the fuel is due to take place in the last quarter of 2018.
According to credit rating company Moody’s the news is credit-negative for EDF, and every year of delay costs the utility between €500mn and €1bn in additional investment. In terms of revenue however, the delayed commissioning is cost-neutral says Moody’s – EDF has to shut down another nuclear plant when Flamanville 3 comes online due to the French government’s energy transition law to diversify its energy supply.
Construction began on the reactor in 2007. EDF chairman and CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy said the experience gained at Flamanville 3 would be invaluable for other EPR projects, such as Hinkley Point C.
Elsewhere in the nuclear world, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report on the 2011 Fukushima incident in Japan that says that one of major factors that contributed to the accident was a widespread assumption by the Japanese that the country’s nuclear power plants were completely safe. An accident of the scale experienced at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear station was deemed by the Japanese authorities as ‘simply unthinkable’, says the report.
According to the report, the assumption on safety was accepted by nuclear station operators and not challenged by regulators or by the government and, as a result, Japan was not sufficiently prepared for the event.
The report also says that there are no discernable health consequences expected as a result of the disaster, though there are some uncertainties. Greenpeace has accused the IAEA of downplaying the environmental and health effects of the incident.
