Just weeks after the French nuclear regulator Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) authorised the commissioning of unit 3 at the Flamanville nuclear power plant and fuel loading of the 241 fuel assemblies is already complete. EDF teams began loading just a day after the ASN approval. The first nuclear reactions will begin in the coming weeks and the reactor will then ramp up gradually. Start-up, control and testing operations are expected to take several more months until it is connected to the electricity grid later in the summer, initially at about 25% of capacity. According to the project manager for the European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) development, the plant is expected to reach 100% of its 1650 MWe (gross) rated output before the end of the year when it will begin commercial operations as the 57th reactor in the French nuclear fleet.
That long-awaited day can’t come too soon. Construction of Flamanville 3 began in December 2007 and initially had been targeting the start of commercial operations for 2013. Needless to say, the project has faced significant delays and cost overruns. Now over a decade behind schedule, the latest estimates put the total cost at €13.2bn ($14.2bn). This compares with the initial estimated costs of just over €3bn when the project was first announced by EDF 20 years ago.
While fuel loading was taking place at Flamanville the first of eight 520-tonne steam generators was being delivered to the UK’s Hinkley Point C construction site in Somerset. Here, two EPRs have been under development since the site licence was granted in 2012.
The first reactor was delivered in February 2023 and is expected to be installed later this year. Construction of Hinkley Point C began in December 2018 and the first unit had originally been scheduled for start up by the end of next year. However, like Flamanville 3, that schedule has been subject to repeated delays, first to 2027 and then more recently it was announced the schedule would be revised again to 2030. At the same time, the cost of the reactor has risen from £26bn ($32bn) to £31-34bn in 2015 prices.
While Flamanville is the first reactor of its kind in France and Hinkley in the UK, it certainly cannot be argued either of these are first of a kind (FOAK) developments. To date three EPR reactors have already been commissioned. Taishan 1&2 in China began construction in 2009 and 2010, respectively, making them the third and fourth units to begin construction. The projects had an initial completion date of 2013 and were actually completed in 2018 and 2019 with unit 1 becoming the first EPR to be connected to the grid. Meanwhile, unit 3 at Olkiluoto in Finland came with an eventual cost of around €11bn, reportedly almost three times the initial estimate. Construction began in 2005 and was originally scheduled for completion in 2009. Commercial operations finally began last spring.
The EPR is not alone in experiencing delays and cost over runs, an MIT study published in 2020 found that, contrary to expectations, in the US building subsequent plants based on an existing design actually cost more, not less, than building the initial plant.
It is fundamental that the learning curve leads to lower costs and an end to the project overruns that are apparently characteristic of nuclear new build. And, it is more than a little troubling to consider that building multiple similar reactors does not necessarily result in that desired outcome. After all, the key to success for SMRs is the concept that manufacturing multiple identical reactor leads to economies of scale, lower costs and on time delivery. If it subsequently turns out that isn’t the case the industry will have manifestly failed to live up to its promise. The inevitable outcome is a loss of investor confidence, retrenchment from policymakers and a return to stagnation. Under those circumstances some would argue that would be deservedly so.
Author: David Appleyard, Editor, Nuclear Engineering International
