The price of electricity continues to go up for several months in France, beating absolute records: he reached Thursday 900 euros per megawatt hour, for delivery next year, against less than 100 euros a year ago .
Le Monde with AFP
Four nuclear reactors, affected by corrosion problems, will see their prolonged stop for several weeks this fall, a delay that could tend a little more the country’s electrical supply and feed an outbreak of already unprecedented prices.
The price of electricity in France continues to go up for several months, beating absolute records: he reached Thursday 900 euros per megawatt hour, for delivery next year, against less than 100 euros a year ago , and less than 50 euros usually in previous years.
EDF, which published this new calendar on Wednesday evening, maintains its nuclear production forecast for 2022 between 280 and 300 Térawat-Hours (TWH), but recognizes, through a spokesperson on Thursday, that production would “probably” reach the bottom of this fork. This extension is linked to “a better estimate” of the time necessary to conduct investigations and repair work, he adds.
thirty-two reactors out of 56 are stopped
Between the planned maintenance operations and the corrosion -related stops, 32 nuclear reactors were stopped on a total of 56 Thursday. The discovery, for a few months, of corrosion problems under stress has led to the putting At the end of 12 reactors, the others being arrested for planned maintenance.
These corrosion problems have been detected or suspected in the welding of the elbows of the safety injection piping (RIS) – which make it possible to cool the reactor in the event of an accident – connected to the primary circuit. This so -called “constraint” corrosion results in small cracks. EDF proposed a method to verify and solve these problems, validated at the end of July by the nuclear security authority, which gave its agreement so that the group controls all of its reactors by 2025, by ultrasound .
The four reactors concerned by the extension of the stops are: Cattenom 1 (handing over on the network now provided for on 1 er November), Cattenom 3 (December 11), Cattenom 4 (November 14), and Penly 1 (January 23, 2023).
Déllesage, a “last resort solution”
EDF’s nuclear production is already at a historically low level, which has contributed to an unprecedented increase in the wholesale prices of electricity. Many other reactors are in maintenance to make up for the delays imposed by the containment period linked to the COVVI-19. EDF had already had to revise, in mid-May, its annual nuclear production estimate.
However, in mid-July, in front of the Senate, a senior EDF official had wanted to be reassuring. “There has not been a blackout in France since 1978 and, even if we are in a very difficult situation, there is still very good chance that we were going through winter without load shedding,” said Marc Benayoun, Executive Director of EDF in charge of the Clients, Services and Territories pole. All the more “if the gas stocks are normally filled”.
Thursday, France had fulfilled its gas stocks for winter 90 %, according to the European platform Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory (AGSI), and was on the right route to hold its 100 % goals in order to This winter is facing potential shortages related to war in Ukraine. During a press briefing, Thursday, on electrical resources, the Ministry of Energy Transition, for its part, judged that the load shedding would be “only a solution of last appeal”.