Reactor number 2 at the Flamanville nuclear power plant (Manche), shut down for 23 months for ten-year maintenance, restarted on the night of Friday 11 to Saturday 12 December, announced EDF.
"
The final coupling was carried out on Saturday at 4:25 am,
" says the power station on its website.
A "
first coupling
" to the electricity network had been carried out Friday evening, allowing "
to start a rise in power of 130 MW (megawatts)
".
Then the turbine was manually stopped for a "
final pass test
".
"
A gradual increase in power will now take place over the next few days until reaching
" the maximum power of the reactor, 1300 MW.
This reactor was shut down on January 10, 2019 for a planned duration of 181 days for ten-year maintenance.
Its restart has been postponed several times, because it was necessary "to
carry out (...) 80% of additional activities (...) on top of the 20,000 activities planned as part of the maintenance
", explained EDF.
The Covid-19 crisis also weighed heavily.
Faced with the risk of a new postponement, EDF had preemptively asked the government for a derogation in the event that the shutdown of reactor number two exceeded two years.
He won't need it.
The law indeed provides that a nuclear installation which has ceased to operate for two consecutive years is normally considered to be "
definitively stopped
".
Reactor 1 for its part was shut down on September 18, 2019 due to corrosion problems and its restart is currently scheduled for January 31 after several postponements.
Alongside reactors 1 and 2 at Flamanville, EDF is building the EPR, which is also experiencing numerous delays and additional costs and should enter service in 2023. According to EDF, 44 of the 56 reactors in service in France are now available.
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