China: the Taishan EPR has been relaunched

Satellite view of the Taishan site (China).

AP - Planet Labs Inc.

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

It's good for China but it's also a strong symbol for French nuclear power and EDF: the Chinese safety authority has announced that it has restarted its third-generation EPR reactor after more than a year of interruption.

This is good news for the French energy giant, the originator of this technology, and for the Chinese who are facing severe electricity shortages.

The Chinese energy “mix” still largely depends on coal.

The revival of the Taishan EPR is timely,

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The news could not have come at a better time, at a time when China is experiencing a particularly hot and dry summer.

In the province of Sichuan, where the rivers have dried up, temperatures easily exceed 40 degrees.

More than five million people are victims of power cuts and local authorities have ordered factories to suspend their activity.

Stopped for a year 

It has been a year of shutdown for the third-generation pressurized water EPR reactor, located in Taishan, in southern China.

The reason: sealing problems.

EDF, for its part, confirmed the resumption of activity.

The French energy giant supplied the EPR technology and remains a minority shareholder with 30% of the nuclear site.

A symbolic site: with the Taishan power plant, China commissioned the world's first third-generation EPR reactor in 2018. 

The EPR “flagship”

Presented as a nuclear flagship by EDF, the EPR technology has experienced only “hiccups” outside China with delivery delays in Flamanville, the United Kingdom and Finland.

In March 2022, the Finnish plant was finally due to enter service after a twelve-year delay.

But the reopening has been pushed back to next December.

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