ASSET MANAGEMENT | STRESS CORROSION CRACKING
in the three months of Q1 nuclear production in France was 91.7TWh, 7.5TWh less than for the same period in 2021. Revenue was down €50mn due to a reduction in the number of customers at the end of March 2022, compared with the end of March 2021, although there was an increase in consumption per customer. Overall, in the first quarter of 2021 EDF was a net seller,
Above: The 1300MWe Penly 1 reactor near Dieppe has also shown indications of SCC Photo credit: Ilona Koeleman/
Shutterstock.com
V Chief Financial Officer. He said, “we are still in an early phase during which we are assessing the situation about stress corrosion. It is too early to give you a precise assessment about the capex that will be needed.” But he told investors that a cost – albeit not precise estimates – had already been built in to financial guidance for 2023, and any loss of generation had been built into the nuclear generation goal for the year of 300-330TWh. One problem in assessing the cost is that although the
reactors are supposedly ‘identical’ within each series, in this case the problem and remedy has not been consistent. One analyst noted that repair outages varied, from five months at Civaux 1 to over a year for others. Regis Clement admitted, “there is no standard timing for compliance restoration work. It will really depend on each reactor situation.” He added, “There is no standard timing approach and it will really depend on the technical solutions that are implemented in each individual case. It is not a generic approach to our fleet.” He admitted that the company was still working on root cause analysis, but said “we are close to the end of understanding the situation of stress corrosion”. Even at the first three reactors – Civaux 1, Chooz 1 and
Penly 1 – the examination and analysis programme was not complete in late May.
Nuclear’s vulnerability With an estimate of the extent of the SCC problem ‘baked in’, EDF Group was able to report a sharp increase in revenues across the group in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the first quarter of 2022. The picture is complex though, because revenues were
supported by the spike in electricity and gas prices which meant a good financial performance for EDF Trading. But EDF Trading had to work hard for its money: although some parts of the group benefited from the high prices, EDF had to buy power in the rising markets to cover the decline in nuclear production. The lower availability meant that
32 | July 2022 |
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the company said in its update, whereas in the first quarter of 2022 it was a net buyer. The decline in nuclear output (and in hydro generation), required the company to buy power at very high prices to fulfil its obligations. It said the cost of ‘buybacks’ due to missing nuclear volumes is estimated at around €14bn based on market prices on 21 April, 2022, and €16bn in mid-March. Overall, the company said, “2022 remains a very challenging year. The volatility in the markets remains extreme. The impacts of the Ukrainian conflict are difficult to quantify.” Pinning down the extent of SCC is key to understanding the full impact on EDF but the likely need to make repairs across the fleet is coming at an unwelcome time for France’s nuclear ambitions. Nuclear generation from EDF’s fleet has been declining over the last five years, falling from nearly 80 per cent in the early 2020s to barely the 70 per cent mark in 2020. Until recently, government strategy was to see it dwindle, to be replaced by a more mixed portfolio with wind and solar replacing much nuclear capacity. President Macron changed that in February when he trumpeted a nuclear revival plan as part of his re-election campaign. He put forward plans for six new EPRs dubbed EPR2s – a step onwards from the EPR still under construction at Flamanville – with a further eight in a follow-on series. Overall the plan would see France gain 25GW of new nuclear capacity by 2050. That requires a big step up in France’s technical capacity,
as was revealed in ASN’s annual nuclear safety report, presented to parliament in May. ASN President Bernard Doroszczuk warned that “What emerges more specifically from 2021, and from the second half of the year in particular, are the industrial weaknesses that affect all the nuclear facilities and the ongoing debate regarding the choices of energy policy and the place of nuclear power in these choices.”
He added, “The new energy policy perspectives,
whatever they are, imply a considerable industrial effort to meet the industrial and safety challenges. If nuclear power is included among the choices made to ensure a decarbonised energy mix by 2050, the nuclear sector will have to set up a true “Marshall Plan” to render this prospect industrially sustainable and to have the skills that enable it to cope with the scale and duration of the projects.” Macron said his new nuclear plan will be presented
for broad public consultation during this year and up for debate in parliament in early 2023. Meanwhile, consumers across France (and Europe) are likely to be suffering energy price rises and shortages this winter, following on from the invasion of Ukraine. Doroszczuk’s comment suggests Macron’s plan will
require investment across the economy, offering both a cost burden and a potential economic boost associated with new nuclear. It remains to be seen whether nuclear SCC investigations will damage the prospects for nuclear in France in future, or can serve as an illustration of the technology’s broader reliability and huge past contribution to French supply. ■
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