France’s EDF faces uphill battle as Europe’s demand for nuclear reactors grows

EDF, the French state-owned energy giant faces criticism for rising costs and delays in its nuclear projects, its existing reactors have also been encountering problems. Euractiv looks at the implications of these challenges for EDF and the wider nuclear energy industry.

Read the original article here.

EDF, Europe’s leading energy company, announced on 23 January 2023 further cost increases and delays in constructing its two third-generation pressurised water reactors (EPR) at Hinkley Point in England. The budget could increase by 70-90% compared to initial estimates, with commissioning delayed up to four to six years.

The French pro-nuclear association SFEN  attributes the delay to the COVID-19 pandemic, the development of safety regulations, and the general inertia of the British industry after 20 years for new reactors in Britain.

In any case, the delays “are not such as to undermine the UK government’s confidence in its nuclear strategy,” SFEN added. Proof of this is the reinvestment of more than £1 billion in the two reactors built by EDF in Sizewell, UK.

For critics, the situation in the UK is symptomatic of the challenges facing the world’s largest nuclear operator, whose confidence with each new project seems to be eroding.

As it seeks to build six, then possibly eight more, EPRs in France and one, then possibly three more, in the Czech Republic, for which the authorities are waiting for guarantees.

This is particularly true as another EDF project is damaging its image, the construction of an EPR in Flamanville, Normandy.

Similar to the UK, construction is suffering from major delays (12 years) and cost overruns (+470%), meaning that the commissioning of the reactor, scheduled for “mid-2024”, could be delayed even further.

Need to build reactors ‘in series’

The same reasons for the delays as the  British project was given, “We built a unique reactor with an industrial sector that was not prepared for it,” said EDF R&D director Bernard Salha in a French Senate hearing in mid-February.

In his view, “the key to success for these future reactors is a ‘series effect’,” which would mean building reactors in batches, or at least in pairs.

In France, the government plans to build six EPR – with a possibility of eight more – at an average cost of €52 billion. The first commissioning is scheduled for 2035.

However, according to Les Échos, the costs have already been revised upwards by 30%. When for a comment, EDF CEO Luc Rémont “would not confirm any figures.”

“We’ll be there (with a definitive cost plan) when we’ve done all the optimisations (engineering design, component manufacture, etc., editor’s note),” he explained on the sidelines of the Franco-Czech nuclear summit held in Prague on 8 and 9 March.

The deadlines, which he admitted at the end of November were already very demanding have since been pushed back to 2040.

However, this back-and-forth is beginning to irritate French Economy and Energy Minister Bruno Le Maire.

“EDF must learn to keep to its costs and its timetable,” Le Maire complained in Le Monde in early March.

French energy minister visits Prague to promote nuclear cooperation

French Energy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher will be in Prague on Monday and Tuesday to make progress on Franco-Czech nuclear cooperation, particularly on the construction of new reactors.

Czechia, Poland, Slovakia…

EDF is also putting its international reputation on the line.

In Prague, Rémont accompanied French President Emmanuel Macron, who defended EDF’s bid to build one, with the option of three additional reactors in Czechia. The Czech government stressed its commitment to respecting deadlines and costs.

“We are interested in the lowest possible price, the highest possible guarantees, and the highest possible guarantee that it will be built on time,” Czech Industry and Trade Minister Jozef Síkela told Euractiv.

In short, just because EDF is the only European company in the running does not mean it will be chosen. Worse still it is facing competition from a subsidiary of South Korea’s KEPCO, as it did in 2009 for building the reactors in the United Arab Emirates.

“Fifteen years later, the Flamanville EPR […] is still not operational. Three of the South Korean reactors in Abu Dhabi are, with the last one due to start very soon [with a delay, editor’s note],” pointed out EDF’s former representative to the EU institutions Lionel Taccoen.

On X by Jean-François Raux, General Delegate of the French Electricity Union – an association of operators in the sector – until 2015, echoed Taccoen’s views.

The situation is all the more worrying for EDF, as it is also interested in building reactors in the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Slovakia. But in Poland, the French company recently lost out.

In addition, the Czech authorities have left the door open for the US company Westinghouse, which has won several contracts for reactors in Europe in recent years, to submit a new bid.

Czech concerns over costs and delays cast shadow on French EDF nuclear bid

In the race to secure a nuclear unit tender for the Dukovany power plant, Czechia express concerns over cost overruns and delays, casting a shadow on French company EDF’s bid.

Industry in full swing

At the French senators’ hearing, Xavier Ursat, director of engineering and new nuclear projects at EDF, was quite calm.

“We are in a phase of recovery for the industry. Flamanville has enabled us to relearn, in a painful way, what it means to manage a major project,” he told senators.

Pierre Gadonneix, head of EDF from 2004 to 2009, told La Tribune last October that if the Hinkley Point project had not gone ahead, “the whole French nuclear industry would have collapsed because there would have been no more construction.”

The other black mark against EDF’s record is the management of its existing reactors, particularly the annus horribilis of 2022 when production fell back to pre-1990 levels during the height of the energy crisis.

“The year in which France should have shone is exactly the year in which we had a 50% reduction in the number of plants,” said vice president of the French Renewable Energy Trade Association Xavier Daval, the main union representing the sector’s players in France, to Euractiv at the end of January.

According to EDF, production will have to wait until 2027 to reach a level slightly higher than 1995 (around 360 TWh per year), a far cry from the 400-420 TWh achieved between 2002 and 2015.

As if that wasn’t enough, at the beginning of March, EDF discovered new “indications” of corrosion in one of its reactors – something the company had to deal with at several of its reactors in 2022.

Despite these problems, the company and the nuclear industry are enjoying more government support than ever.

France, along with the 15 other EU countries that are part of the ‘nuclear alliance’, indicated its support for the development of between 30 and 45 large reactors by 2050, it is quite likely that EDF could play a leading role in this process.

[Edited by Rajnish Singh]

Pro-nuclear countries back total opening up of EU funding for nuclear

Nuclear technologies should benefit from all types of EU funding, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and innovation funds, the French-led nuclear alliance, which now has 12 EU member states, said at its meeting on Monday.

Read more with Euractiv

French EU election list leaders spar over bloc's electricity market, nuclear

French candidates topping the lists for the EU elections in June laid bare their differences on nuclear energy and the EU electricity market in the first televised debate of Public Sénat on Thursday (14 March).