The opening of the European Pressurized Reactor in Flamanville comes 12 years late on the initial schedule.

Summary

France’s Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor, its most powerful at 1,600 MW, was connected to the grid on December 21 after 17 years of construction plagued by delays and budget overruns.

The European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), designed to boost nuclear energy post-Chernobyl, is 12 years behind schedule and cost €13.2 billion, quadruple initial estimates.

President Macron hailed the launch as a key step for low-carbon energy and energy security.

Nuclear power, which supplies 60% of France’s electricity, is central to Macron’s plan for a “nuclear renaissance.”

  • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
    1210·
    2 days ago

    In the second half of 2022 Germany had to export a lot of energy to France, because french nuclear power plants are so poorly run that a lot of them had to be taken off network at the same time.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/even-crisis-germany-extends-power-exports-neighbours-2023-01-05/

    FRANKFURT, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Germany exported more electricity to its neighbours than it imported in 2022, even with an energy crisis at home, thanks to more more weather-driven renewable power and greater demand from France.

    Due to the technical problems affecting French reactors, Germany for the first time sold more power to France than it received from its neighbour, doubling its year-earlier export volume there. France produced 15.1% less power in 2022 and the volume fell short of national usage by 1%. France faced its own energy crisis amid outages owing to delayed maintenance and stress corrosion.

    France failing to diversify its energy production is not a failure of Germany or any other country though.

    • oce 🐆@jlai.luEnglish
      162·
      2 days ago

      What a misleading cherry picking, this was an exceptional event due to:

      1. Maintenance schedules being delayed because of COVID
      2. A new maintenance issue discovered and triggering a general inspection that created further delay
      3. Energy crisis related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine which dramatically reduced gas imports in Europe and skyrocketed the price of gas, and as a consequence the price of electricity, as gas is currently required to balance electricity consumption in winter.

      As mentioned by the other comment, it has been the other way around for the previous 4 years and will very likely be the case too for this year and for the next years. Not only to Germany, but all inter-connected countries too, UK, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium are benefiting from this stable source. This is not a competition, it’s a good thing Europe can work together with each other strength to make the grid more sustainable. The sudden shift of Germany against nuclear, which increased its electricity dependency on gas, coal and Russia, was not a good for Europe, and not only for energitical reasons. I hope Germany will be able to reduce this dependency as fast as possible and I am happy that French nuclear will contribute to it.

      • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
        72·
        2 days ago

        Which exposed a systemic risk of a nuclear focused energy production. Also the energy crisis would have indicated Germany to need more imports. On the contrary the French Nuclear industry failure was so bad, that despite all of it, Germany had to export energy to France.

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.netEnglish
      101·
      2 days ago

      And why did it make the news when Germany is exporting electricity to France ? Because in 2023, 2021, 2020, 2019 … Germany has been importing electricity from France.

      • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
        13·
        2 days ago

        So the poor management of France nuclear power blew a hole into Europes energy production so big, that it out-competed the effects of the Russian invasion.