France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
on the
Cotentin Peninsula
The Cotentin Peninsula (, ; ), also known as the Cherbourg Peninsula, is a peninsula in Normandy that forms part of the northwest coast of France. It extends north-westward into the English Channel, towards Great Britain. To its west lie the Gu ...
. The
power plant
A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...
houses three
pressurized water reactor
A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan, India and Canada).
In a PWR, water is used both as ...
s (PWRs). Unit 1 and 2, rated 1.3 GWe each, and based on Westinghouse design, were ordered following the Messmer Plan and deliver full power since 1987. Unit 3 is an EPR unit with a
nameplate capacity
Nameplate capacity, also known as the rated capacity, nominal capacity, installed capacity, maximum effect or gross capacity,GWe connected to the
grid
Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to:
Space partitioning
* Regular grid, a tessellation of space with translational symmetry, typically formed from parallelograms or higher-dimensional analogs
** Grid graph, a graph structure with nodes connec ...
in December 2024 (but still far from full power as of January 2025). The power plant produced 18.9 TWh in 2005, which amounted to 4% of the electricity production in France. In 2006 there were 671 workers regularly working at the plant. In 2023, 11,7 TWh were produced with 1400 regular workers.
Construction of unit 3 began in 2007 with its commercial introduction scheduled for 2012. In charge
Areva
Areva S.A. was a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power, active between 2001 and 2018. It was headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through t ...
proved unable to managed this project (just like Olkiluoto 3), leading to the ultimate demise of the company. Various safety problems have been raised, including weakness in the steel used in the reactor. In July 2019, further delays were announced, pushing back the commercial introduction date to the end of 2022. the project was more than five times over budget. In January 2022, more delays were announced, with fuel loading continuing until mid-2023, and again in December 2022, delaying fuel loading to early 2024. Fuel loading was completed in May 2024. The reactor eventually started up in early September 2024. and was connected to the grid at 11:48 AM on 21 December 2024.
Unit 1 & 2
Unit 3
Construction on a new reactor, Flamanville 3, began on 4 December 2007. The new unit is an
Areva
Areva S.A. was a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power, active between 2001 and 2018. It was headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through t ...
European Pressurized Reactor
The EPR is a Generation III+ pressurised water reactor design. It has been designed and developed mainly by Framatome (part of Areva between 2001 and 2017) and Électricité de France (EDF) in France, and by Siemens in Germany. In Europe, this ...
Enel
Enel S.p.A. is an Italian multinational manufacturer and distributor of electricity and gas. Enel was first established as a public body at the end of 1962, and then transformed into a limited company in 1992. In 1999, following the liberali ...
announced it was relinquishing its 12.5% stake in the project, and five future EPRs. They would be reimbursed for their project stake of €613 million plus interest.
In November 2014, EDF announced that completion of construction was delayed to 2017 due to delays in component delivery by
Areva
Areva S.A. was a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power, active between 2001 and 2018. It was headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through t ...
.
In April 2015, Areva informed the French nuclear regulator, Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN), that anomalies had been detected in the reactor vessel steel, causing "lower than expected mechanical toughness values".Segolene Royal, Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy in the Second Valls Government, asked the producer for further details and possible consequences.
Various safety problems have been raised, including weakness in the steel used in the reactor together with heterogeneity of the steel alloy forged high integrity components used in the reactor pressure vessel, that have also been shown to be present in Japanese-sourced components that have entered the French nuclear equipment supply chain. The safety of the Flamanville EPR plant has also been questioned due to the danger of flooding of the kind experienced during the 1999 Blayais Nuclear Power Plant flood.The great lesson France has to learn from Fukushima Deciphering Fukushima, published 2011-03-08, accessed 8 May 2012 In June 2015 multiple faults in cooling system safety valves were discovered by ASN.
In September 2015, EDF announced that the estimated costs had escalated to €10.5 billion, and the start-up of the reactor was delayed to the fourth quarter of 2018. The delays of Unit 3 of Flamanville received additional attention when in December 2016 ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...
'' reported that the British loan guarantees for Hinkley Point C require Unit 3 to be operational by 2020, that the regulator will rule on the future of Unit 3 mid-2017 and that one possible outcome of this ruling can delay its opening far beyond 2018, thus jeopardizing the British loan guarantees thereby preventing EDF from building the EPRs at Hinkley Point.
In February 2017, renewed delays in the construction of the EPR-reactors at Taishan Nuclear Power Plant prompted EDF to state that Flamanville 3 remains on schedule to start operations by the end of 2018, assuming it receives regulator approval. In June 2017, the French regulator issued a provisional ruling that Flamanville 3 is safe to start.
In January 2018, cold functional tests were completed. In February, EDF found that some secondary cooling circuit welds did not meet specifications, causing EDF to carry out further checks and issue a report. Following this, ASN requested EDF to extend the welding checks to other systems. Hot functional tests had to be postponed.
In July 2018, EDF further delayed fuel loading to Q4 2019 and increased the project's cost estimate by a further €400 million ($467.1 million USD). The latest project cost estimates by EDF amounted to €10.9 billion ($12.75 billion USD), three times the original cost estimates. Hot testing was pushed back to the end of 2018. In January 2019, a further one-month delay in hot testing was announced.
In June 2019, the regulator ASN determined that eight welds in steam transfer pipes passing through the two-wall containment, that EDF had hoped to repair after startup, must be repaired before the reactor is commissioned. On 29 June 2019, it was announced that the start-up was once again being pushed back, making it unlikely it could be started before the end of 2022. It is estimated the repairs will add €1.5 billion to the costs, bringing the total to €12.4 billion. Further cost increases due to additional time needed to repair 110 defective welds have increased the cost to €12.7 billion.
In July 2020, the French
Cour des Comptes
The ''Cour des Comptes'' (, "Court of Accounts") is France's supreme audit institution, under French law an administrative court. As such, it is independent from the legislative and executive branches of the French Government. However, the 1946 ...
finalised an eighteen-month in-depth analysis of the project, concluding that the total estimated cost reaches up to €19.1 billion. The severe delays incurred additional financing costs, as well as added taxes and levies. In a response, EDF did not dispute the findings of the court. In the same month, France's energy minister Barbara Pompili noted the high costs and delays, calling the project "a mess".
In December 2022, EDF announced a further delay of at least six months with an estimated cost increase of €500 million due to more work to establish a new process for the stress relieving heat treatment of some welds close to sensitive equipment. Estimated total costs increased to €13.2 billion. Fuel loading started on 8 May 2024 and has been completed on 22 May 2024.
On 3 September 2024, the reactor started test operation, but the following day it shut down automatically, possibly due to a configuration error. The reactor suffered a second automatic shutdown on September 17.
On 21 Dec 2024, the reactor was connected to the national grid, initially producing 100 MW of power.
Incidents
On 9 February 2017, a mechanical problem with a fan in the turbine hall of unit 1 caused an explosion and fire, causing five people to be treated for
smoke inhalation
Smoke inhalation is the breathing in of harmful fumes (produced as by-products of combusting substances) through the respiratory tract. This can cause smoke inhalation injury (a kind of acute inhalation injury) which is damage to the respirator ...
. While the non-nuclear accident did not cause any radioactive leak, it did cause the number one reactor to be disconnected from the power grid. EDF initially estimated the reactor would be operational within a week, but later estimated the end of March.
Units 1 and 2 were under enhanced surveillance by regulator Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN) from 2019 to 2022 because of shortcomings in some operating activities, a high number of maintenance faults, poor mastery of certain maintenance operations, and inadequate quality of the ten-year inspection documentation of unit 1. This involved about 30 ASN inspections a year.