EDF postpones nuclear project by two years

EDF announced in July 2011 that it had been forced to delay one of the world’s biggest atomic power projects by two years in part because of the need to carry out stringent new safety tests following the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan earlier in 2011. The company originally hoped to have the new 1,650-megawatt plant at Flamanville in northern France up and running by 2012.

The cost over-runs and delays were seen as a blow to the state-owned company and to France because the reactor, known as the EPR, is the first of a new generation of reactors that Paris hoped to export around the world.

Another EPR reactor was being built in Finland by Areva, the French nuclear group, but that has also been beset by delays and spiralling costs.

Separately, Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF Energy in the United Kingdom, said that the UK could still rely on EDF, the French energy giant, to deliver a new generation of nuclear power stations despite a similar project in France encountering severe delays.

ESO: Background information: France tries to calm reactor concerns http://www.europeansources.info/record/france-tries-to-calm-reactor-concerns/

France24, 20.7.11: France delays new generation nuclear plant http://www.france24.com/en/20110720-france-delays-new-generation-nuclear-plant-safety-concerns-edf-flamanville

ESO: Background information: Why Britain must take the nuclear path http://www.europeansources.info/record/why-britain-must-take-the-nuclear-path/

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