19 Nov (NucNet): Hot testing of the Flamanville-3 EPR unit under construction in northern France is scheduled to begin by the end of the year, EDF executive director Xavier Ursat said in an interview with French nuclear society SFEN.
Mr Ursat said state-controlled EDF is “engaged in the final stretch” before commissioning, which is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2019.
He also said EDF has been working for several years to integrate all the feedback from EPR construction and has begun a project to develop a second generation EPR that would have a simplified design and be cheaper and easier to build. He said the “EPR 2” could be used to renew the French nuclear fleet by 2030.
In July 2018 problems with weldings forced EDF to delay the start-up date for Flamanville-3 and announce an increase in the cost of the project to €10.5bn. An estimate of the cost in July 2011 was €8bn and at the start of construction in 2007 was about €6.5bn.
Hot testing, which involves checking the equipment under similar temperature and pressure conditions to those under which it will operate, had been scheduled to begin in July 2018.
There are five EPR projects: Flamanville-3 in France, Olkiluoto-3 in Finland, Hinkley Point C in the UK – where two EPRs are being built – and Taishan-1 and -2 in Guangdong province, southern China. In June 2018 Taishan-1 became the first EPR to be connected to the grid.
In October, EDF said it was aiming to reduce the cost of its future EPR projects by 30%, based on lessons learned from the delayed construction of Flamanville-3 and Olkiluoto-3.
Jean-Pierre West, the company’s director for optimisation and performance of engineering, told a conference in Brussels that the reduction can be achieved by avoiding a number of “unexpected contingency costs” of the kind incurred during the construction of the two projects.
Mr West said standardisation of the design, construction, safety and licensing process is vital for controlling project costs. He said better project management and more digitalisation are some of the ways EDF can move forward.
He said the nuclear industry needs to speak to regulatory bodies and make sure that licensing and safety requirements do not change in the course of projects’ construction phases.
Asked about the cost of the Hinkley Point C EPR project in England, Mr West said two-unit project is estimated to cost £19.6bn.
The interview with SFEN is online (in French): https://bit.ly/2Ta0GUg
