France's largest nuclear reactor is finally powering the country's grid, more than a decade after it was scheduled to enter commercial operation. Flamanville 3, an EPR reactor located in Normandy, maintaining a series of technical problems over the past several years. The 1,600-MW unit, which is now the most powerful generating unit in France, began providing electricity on December 21. It was originally planned to come online 12 years ago. Luc Remont, CEO of Électricité de France (EDF), the multinational utility company based in Paris, confirmed in a statement that Flamanville 3 had been started. for the country,” noting that the unit is “one of the most powerful nuclear reactors in the world.” Macron said, “Re-industrialization is French-style ecology to save energy produce low carbon ” (caption id=”attachment_125233″ align=”alignnone” width=”640″)
The Flamanville 3 reactor in Normandy, France, entered commercial operation on December 21, 2024. The unit was originally scheduled to be commissioned 12 years ago. Courtesy: EDF(/caption) The first EPR came online in 2018 when Unit 1 at the Taishan site in China entered commercial operation. Two other EPRs are currently in service: Taishan 2 in China, and at Olkiluoto in Finland. The Olkiluoto unit came online last year, 14 years after it was originally commissioned.
A 'Historical' Event for France
Remont said the start-up of Flamanville 3 is “historic,” noting, “The last time a reactor started up in France was 25 years ago at Civaux 2,” referring to the Civaux power plant in western France gets about 62% of its electricity from nuclear power, according to the World Nuclear Association (WNA). the country, with about 64 GW of generation capacity. The cost of Flamanville 3 is estimated at about 13.2 billion euros ($13.76 billion), about four times the original estimated cost of 3.3 billion euros on September 3 of this year, but maintained what is known as an “automatic shutdown” the following day.This resulted in more tests on the site, and an increase in mean gradually to the grid connection on Saturday Macron has promised to add more nuclear power to the French generation fleet. His government ordered in 2022 six EPR2 reactors, a simplified version of the EPR design. EDF and Framatome are developing the EPR2. Macron has said he is considering options for eight more EPR2 units in addition to the six already ordered. The first six EPR2 reactors are expected to be installed in pairs at Penly, Gravelines and Bugey power stations. –Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
