Flamanville NPP

On October 25, 2012, an accident occurred at the Flamanville NPP - a radiation leak occurred inside one of the reactors. At the time of the incident, this reactor was under maintenance, at the last stage of its launch. As a result, the reactor was again completely shut down. The leak was so insignificant that the evacuation of personnel was not even required ^[1] .

On February 9, 2017, at about 10 a.m., an explosion occurred in the engine room of Unit 1, according to Ouest-France, citing its sources. After the explosion at the nuclear power plant, a fire occurred, but it happened “outside the nuclear zone”. Five people received mild poisoning; their condition does not cause concern. The prefecture said that there is no risk of radiation infection. After the incident, reactor No. 1 was shut down ^[2] .

Since December 2007, the construction of the new European third-generation reactor EPR ( English European Pressurized Reactor ) with a capacity of 1,650 MW has been underway at the NPP site. The construction of a new reactor causes massive protests. According to some experts, the share of nuclear energy in France is too large, which already creates certain problems for the country's energy system ^[3] . The launch of the third power unit was planned for 2012, but due to numerous technical problems was postponed to 2016. In 2015, manufacturing defects were discovered on the upper and lower parts of the reactor vessel — an increased carbon content in steel, which reduces the vessel strength below the norm. This in turn leads to possible risks of safe operation of the third reactor of the Flamanville NPP ^[4] . The development company is developing an assessment procedure that would allow us to assess whether the design operation of a reactor with a defective material is acceptable. The start of the third power unit was postponed to the end of 2018.

The construction of Flamanville-3 is associated with significant losses. According to the EPR developer, the cost of its construction was to be 1 billion euros. The construction contract provided for costs of 3 billion euros. In 2015, costs reached 8.5 billion euros ^[5] .

In July 2018, EDF announced a new completion schedule for the construction and commissioning of Unit 3 of Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant. The power start of the block according to the new schedule is shifted to the first quarter of 2020. The block price will be 10.9 billion euros ^[6] .