EDF blows a little. Two French nuclear reactors have been restarted, following maintenance operations. Welcome electricity, while serious questions arise about the ability of France to produce enough to survive the winter. There is still a long way to go to make sure.
It hadn’t happened since last March. French nuclear electricity production has gone back above the 37 GW mark.
The restart of Flamanville-2 and Cattenom-4 gives EDF some breathing space.
The French electrician faces a degraded situation of its nuclear fleet.
Out of 56 reactors installed, only 38 are in operation today, following numerous problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, among other things, maintenance operations and the discovery of corrosion on some of them.
The objective now is to restart others. Those of Cruas-2 and Dampierre-3 should be in the middle of the coming week. Enough to reach the bar of 40 GW of production.
The calculation is important, with winter coming. Power consumption is very much related to temperature. It is estimated that one degree less leads to a demand for an additional 2 GW.
It is therefore the race to restart as many reactors as possible by January, with a target of 46, all necessary to avoid degrading an already very tense situation.
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