Nantes (AFP)

After the abandonment of a biomass conversion project for the Cordemais power station (Loire-Atlantique), announced Thursday by EDF, the site will continue to operate entirely on coal at least until 2024, despite the presidential commitment to do away with this fuel.

Emmanuel Macron had promised to close all coal plants by the end of the five-year term, a goal confirmed in law in 2019.

Two of the last four coal-fired power stations, the most harmful fuel for the climate, have already closed and another is due to shut down next year.

With regard to Cordemais, RTE, the manager of the high voltage network had underlined in his last report that the plant would be necessary to supply the West region at least until 2024 and the commissioning of the EPR nuclear reactor of Flamanville, in Normandy.

Faced with these risks of tension in terms of electricity supply in the coming winters, a project for partial conversion to biomass, Ecocombust, seemed well advanced.

Thursday, EDF announced its abandonment for reasons of cost and withdrawal of a partner.

The withdrawal of the Suez causes "a delay in the date of industrial commissioning at 2024", which implies that the plant "could not have produced electricity via an alternative fuel to coal over the period 2022-2024" , said EDF.

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The plant, inaugurated on the banks of the Loire in 1970, will therefore continue to operate 100% on coal at least until 2024. According to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the plant will be used "at the margin", to meet the needs of the West region, "during peak consumption in winter, for a few dozen to a few hundred hours per year at most".

- "No impact on employment" -

The plant's operating ceiling was set at 750 hours per year, or five times less than today, according to EDF.

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"The cost price of substitute fuel (wood waste pellets, Editor's note) is not competitive compared to coal," said Denis Florenty, Ecocombust project manager, during a conference call.

The Suez group, which specializes in waste recycling, told AFP that it had decided to withdraw "given the current uncertainty about the existence of a sustainable downstream market and profitable in the long term".

Suez, EDF's partner on this project, "was in charge of part of the construction of the pellet plant," said Mr. Florenty.

"The fact that they are withdrawing (…) added around 8 months to the production schedule".

This would have postponed "the commissioning planned after the period announced by RTE", between 2022 and 2024, during which the operation of the Cordemais plant will be crucial, he added.

"If doing the Ecocombust project does not allow us to respond to this period (...) it no longer makes sense."

"We are releasing a product that is too expensive for the expectations of the market" and which "arrives a little late for Cordemais' needs", summarized Mr. Florenty, confessing "a little sadness".

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In March, Ecocombust, which involves both adapting the plant to alternative fuel and producing pellets by creating a dedicated production plant, received the favorable opinion of a public inquiry commission.

The investment was then estimated at 114 million euros for the pellet plant (149 million today, according to EDF) and 20 million euros for the adaptation of the plant.

The decision to stop Ecocombust, "has no impact on employment at the Cordemais power station," assured EDF, which employs some 350 people on the site.

Ecocombust has "always been actively supported by the whole of the territory", argued the CGT, at the initiative of the project in 2015. The president of the department Michel Ménard (PS) lamented an announcement "chopper while all the sighted seemed green ".

This project looked "promising" with the "prospect of making available to other countries a technology limiting both CO2 emissions by the use of class B wood and ensuring their depollution at the time of manufacture. pellets "responded Senator EELV Ronan Dantec.

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Nantes PS mayor Johanna Rolland, for her part, regretted "bad news" for the territory, and in particular for employment, for what represented an "alternative to coal combustion in view of the depletion of resources" .

faa-cho-aag-hdu / LyS

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