The country’s first third-generation nuclear reactor, located at the Flamanville (Manche) power plant, is truly extraordinary. This European pressurized reactor (EPR) will take twelve years longer than expected to load its first uranium, in May 2024, then to connect it to the power grid, on December 21 of the same year.
And now, although the EDF operator has not yet reached full capacity, its first full visit closure for the foreseeable future is already threatening to drag on. This visit, enforced by applicable safety regulations, must begin thirty months after the first fuel loading. By the end of 2024, EDF plans to launch it in the spring of 2026, for at least two hundred and fifty days.
Wednesday 12 November, as he explained during a telephone update with journalists, operators are now planning for this moment to start in September 2026, with a duration that is now estimated at three hundred and fifty days. In other words, the EPR will remain closed in principle for more than eleven months, time to carry out 20,000 test and inspection activities that could mobilize up to 2,500 people and 200 subcontractors.
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