Fessenheim NPP ( French: Centrale nucléaire de Fessenheim ) is an operating nuclear power plant in the north-east of France in the Alsace region.
| Fessenheim NPP | |
|---|---|
 | |
| A country |  France |
| Location | Fessenheim , Upper Rhine , Alsace |
| Year of commencement of construction | 1971 |
| Commissioning | 1977 |
| Operating organization | Edf |
| Main characteristics | |
| Electric power, MW | 1800 MW |
| Equipment specifications | |
| Number of power units | 2 |
| Type of Reactors | Pwr |
| Operated Reactors | 2 |
| On the map | |
The station is located on the banks of the Great Alsatian Canal in the Fessenheim commune in the Upper Rhine department near the border with Germany , 28 km northeast of the city of Mulhouse .
The nuclear power plant includes two power units with pressurized water reactors (PWR) CP0 of the Framatome design with a capacity of 900 MW each.
The construction of the station began in 1970, commissioning took place in 1977. This is the oldest operating nuclear power plant in France [1] .
Content
Incidents
On April 9, 2014, a leak in the water conduit was discovered at the station’s first reactor, and as a result it was stopped.
On April 20, 2014, another accident occurred at Fessenheim NPP. The second reactor of the station was shut down due to the closing of the valve on the turbogenerator.
Closing a nuclear power plant
One of the campaign promises of French President Francois Hollande was the imminent closure of the Fessenheim NPP. At his promise, the station should have been completely stopped in 2016. The negative in relation to the station is connected not only with the fact that it is the oldest of the existing nuclear power plants in France, but also with its location in a seismically dangerous zone - there is a rift valley fault nearby. The station itself was built on sections with a near-surface occurrence of groundwater, the possible pollution of which will become catastrophic for a significant part of the area. The authorities of neighboring countries — Germany and Switzerland — also advocate the closure of the Fessenheim NPP [2] .
On September 29, 2015, news agencies, citing President Francois Hollande, announced that the Fessenheim NPP would not be closed in 2016. In this regard, President Hollande said that he did not give up his promise, and the government would launch an “irreversible” procedure, which would ultimately lead to the closure of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant after the delayed launch of the Flamanville-3 unit [3] .
In 2018, President Emmanuel Macron introduced a new energy strategy, according to which both units of the Fessenheim NPP should be stopped in the spring of 2020 (in accordance with the current launch schedule for Flamanville-3) [4] .
Unit Information
| Power unit | Type of Reactors | Power | Start building | Physical launch | Network connection | Commissioning | Closing | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clean | Gross | |||||||
| Fessenheim-1 [5] | PWR , CP0 | 880 MW | 920 MW | 09/01/1971 | 03/07/1977 | 04/06/1977 | 01/01/1978 | - |
| Fessenheim-2 [6] | PWR , CP0 | 880 MW | 920 MW | 02/01/1972 | 06/27/1977 | 10/07/1977 | 04/01/1978 | - |