The French government has extended the construction timetable of the EPR (European Pressurised Reactor) in Flamanville (Manche Department) up to April 2020, instead of the fourth quarter of 2018.
This three-year reconduction of the building permit was one of the guarantees requested by EDF to compensate the closure of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant in the Haut-Rhin Department. EDF was seeking to delay by three years (i.e. until April 2020) the legal commissioning date for its third generation power nuclear Flamanville EPR project to have a security margin in case of problem.
The provisional schedule of the construction has been extended to 13 years instead of the 10 envisaged in the 2007 decree. The EPR project was initially scheduled to feed first power to grid in 2012, five years after the project launch. The start of operations has been postponed several times. The coupling of the reactor to the grid for its commercial commissioning is now expected to take place in the second quarter of 2019. In the fourth quarter of 2019, it is expected to reach its maximum capacity of 1,650 MW.
In addition, EDF announced the cost of the project was raised to €10.5bn, up from the initial budget of €3.3bn.
Three other EPRs are also under construction at Olkiluoto 3 in Finland and Taishan 1 and 2 in China. Two further EPRs are planned at Hinkley Point in the United Kingdom.
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