"We are in the home straight", assures the director of the Flamanville 3 project, Alain Morvan, responsible for completing this project, which has become the symbol of the difficulties of the French nuclear industry.

"We are on a site in pre-operation", he insists, showing the progress of the work on the vast site on the edge of the Channel.

In the engine room, under the height of a cathedral, the 70-meter-long turbine awaits its hour in silence.

The engine room and the turbine of the Flamanville EPR, June 14, 2022 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

Here, everything is more than 95% ready and one of the challenges is to keep the equipment in good condition until commissioning.

Some 3,000 people now come to the Flamanville site daily and small groups in the colors of EDF and multiple subcontractors (Onet, Spie, Assystem, Westinghouse, etc.) meet peacefully to carry out the final finishing touches. .

Among them, 500 will be responsible for the future operation of the 1,650 MW reactor.

In the control room, about fifteen operators monitor parameters on screens in a studious atmosphere.

One calls out a series of numbers while another worries on the phone about a leak alarm.

Staff already take turns day and night in this overprotected room which acts as the brain of the reactor.

The Flamanville EPR control room, June 14, 2022 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

The objective is now to load the fuel in the second quarter of 2023. The first nuclear reactions are expected two months later, followed by a gradual increase in power.

The reactor will be coupled to the network and will send its first electrons there when it has reached 25% power, normally before the end of 2023. But it will have to be shut down and the EPR vessel head replaced before the end of 2024, which has anomalies.

Swedish welders

At a time when French President Emmanuel Macron wants to build six additional EPRs, the completion of Flamanville is decisive for EDF, which wants to turn the page after 11 years of delay and a bill almost quadrupled to 12.7 billion euros. euros.

The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), which must issue the authorization for commissioning, stresses for its part that “significant work still remains to be carried out on many topics presenting significant safety issues”.

Operators in the Flamanville EPR engine room, June 14, 2022 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

"This is the case in particular for the repair of welds", we emphasize to ASN.

EDF is indeed forced to redo around a hundred welds, including twelve that are difficult to access because they cross a thick concrete enclosure.

The resumption of the latter with a robot is "now behind us" and the whole must be finished before the end of the year, indicates Alain Morvan.

So far, 86% of weld repairs have started and 59% have been completed.

Operators on the Flamanville EPR site, June 14, 2022 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

This unspectacular but essential work mobilizes a total of 800 operators, including welders from the United States or the rest of Europe.

Among them, a few specialists in helmets adorned with the Swedish flag installed in a narrow passageway watch on a screen a "shaving" operation, intended to remove the excess metal caused by the welding and to make the pipe smooth.

The operation of the day concerns a witness piece intended for the safety authority.

EDF operators in the engine room of the Flamanville EPR, June 14, 2022 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

EDF will also have to change certain nuclear fuel assemblies to learn from an incident on one of the two EPRs already in operation in China, at Taishan.

Here too, it will be necessary to convince the ASN, which says it is "attentive" to the feedback from the Chinese and Finnish EPRs, whose beginnings were marked by various problems.

In the end, the anti-nuclear NGO Greenpeace considers the schedule announced by EDF "misleading and worrying" in view of the many unknowns that remain.

“We are well focused on keeping the schedule” but “with a small margin”, estimates Alain Morvan, who had launched the first nuclear submarine Barracuda before being called to the rescue of the EPR of Flamanville.

Operators near the Flamanville EPR reactor enclosure, June 14, 2022 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

Will the latter experience yet another delay?

“I am not able to read in a crystal ball, but today I think that we have secured all the technical subjects”, he replies cautiously.

© 2022 AFP