The French Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition has updated the schedule for the closure of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant located in Alsace (France): the shutdown will no longer be conditionally tied to the start-up of the 1,600 MW Flamanville-3 EPR project (currently under construction in Normandy, France), as required in the French Energy Transition Act capping EDF's nuclear generating capacity at 63.2 GW. The government estimates that doing both operations at the same time is difficult given the fact that the commissioning date of the Flamanville-3 EPR is still unknown (expected in 2019 at the earliest). The shutdown exact date is unknown but the government hopes that the plant will close during the current presidential mandate, i.e. before the end of 2022.
The Fessenheim facility includes two pressurized water reactors (PWRs) with a capacity of 880 MW each. In average, the plant delivers 10 TWh/year since 1977.