Operations for loading uranium fuel into the new EPR nuclear reactor at the Flamanville power station (Manche) were completed on Wednesday, a step prior to the gradual start-up of the site, we learned this Thursday, May 16 from the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN).
“The fuel loading ended yesterday (Wednesday) around 12 p.m.,” said ASN deputy director general Julien Collet to an AFP journalist. The maneuver began on May 8 in the reactor building swimming pool. EDF had obtained authorization from ASN the day before, at the end of a long and difficult project.
The EPR, the 57th French reactor and the most powerful in the park, was to receive in its tank some 60,000 “pencils”, thin tubes 5 meters long containing uranium pellets.
“Afterwards, we close the tank. Then tests are carried out with the tank closed, and afterward there will be stages of increasing pressure and temperature which will allow other safety devices to be tested,” described the head of the nuclear watchdog. , on the sidelines of the presentation of the ASN annual report on the state of nuclear safety in France. “Start-up operations are continuing in accordance with schedule,” EDF said on Thursday.
Electricity production at full power by the end of the year
Several stages are in fact still awaited before the reactor can deliver its first electrons, expected during the summer. In the rise in pressure and temperature of the boiler, a first milestone is expected at 110 degrees. This step will not require a formal opinion from the ASN, but it will however have three days to issue a possible veto. The nuclear policeman will, however, have to issue his agreement before the launch of “divergence”, the first nuclear fission reaction. Then when the reactor is close to reaching the 25% power level, it can be connected to the electrical network (the “coupling”). Full power production is expected by the end of the year.