“The speed of construction of EPRs is a fundamental question”, recalled the CEO of EDF during a hearing at the National Assembly. This summer, he announced that he had set his teams “the very ambitious objective of demonstrating that we will build them in 70 months between the first concrete and industrial commissioning. This will not be the case on the first, which will be the first in its series, but the objective is to reach 70 months as quickly as possible.or from the Bugey pair, see that of Gravelines. EDF teams have until the end of the year to find solutions. The step is very high.
A gain of three years to build the EPRs
70 months is less than six years – compared to 105 months (almost 9 years) planned for the first EPR2 at Penly. The objective for the sixth EPR2, built in Bugey, was 90 months. It is therefore no longer 15 months that must be saved between the 1st and 6th, benefiting from feedback and optimization from one site to another, but 35 months… or three years! This is huge, especially since there is already no guarantee that the target construction times for the EPR2 will be met.
As a reminder, the construction of the Flamanville EPR (Manche), whose industrial commissioning is now planned for 2025, will have taken 18 years. “Worldwide, the average construction time is still around 10 years.recalls nuclear analysis Mycle Schneider, very doubtful about EDF’s objectives, even if the Chinese announce that they will build their new reactors in less than six years. “Given its mistakes in the past and present, the EDF company has lost all credibility regarding its ability to predict the duration of construction of a nuclear reactor”he objects.
EDF will already be able to rely on the lessons learned from the Flamanville EPR project, the causes of the delay of which were highlighted in the 2019 Folz report commissioned by the previous CEO of EDF, Jean-Bernard Levy.
A new internal organization
To meet costs, quality and deadlines, EDF has already decided to build the EPR2s in series, and in pairs. The operating manufacturer also decided to simplify the design of the EPR in its EPR2 model, by standardizing everything that could be done in terms of civil engineering and equipment up to the prefabrication of elements or entire buildings, like the fuel pool of the reactor building.
EDF also worked with its suppliers as part of the Excell quality plan. And its two subsidiaries, Framatome and Arabelle Solutions, will invest to adapt their industrial tools to mass production of steam generators and EPR2 turbocharger groups.
Internally, EDF created an internal customer position in 2022, entrusted to senior energy official Nicolas Machtou, who had been sorely missed for Flamanville 3. And on April 1, 2024, the company also acquired a new organization of nuclear activities with a strategy, technologies, innovation and development department led by Xavier Ursat who ensures project management of the new nuclear project, a projects and construction department ensuring project management of the EPR2 led by Thierry Le Mouroux, and an engineering and supply chain department, headed by Alain Tranzer, formerly of PSA who had led Edf’s Excell plan to regain confidence in nuclear power.
An external project review
For its part, the government created in November 2022 an interministerial directorate for new nuclear power (DINN) led by Joël Barre, former general delegate for Armaments, who must supervise project management over its entire public part. “Our mission is to ensure that the ERP2 program is carried out in the best possible conditions”summarizes Joël Barre, reassuring about the objective of 70 months. “During the Messmer plan, the completion time was around seven years. And the degression which is targeted by EDF, by announcing the objective of 70 months, corresponds to the orders of magnitude that we can encounter in mass industrial programs, armaments or space.
Inspired by major armaments and space programs, the DINN and EDF have also set up a general maturity review of the project, entrusted to a team of around fifteen experts, including a third of nuclear experts from EDF, a third of experts from the State, the DINN and the DGA and a third of industrial experts. They worked from March 2023 to July 2024. Their first report in November 2023 notably concluded that the basic design was insufficiently mature to move on to the detailed design phase, i.e. the final construction plans. “The expert committee made 89 recommendations, all of which were accepted by Luc Rémont, in particular that of the establishment of a monitoring committee”specifies Nicolas Machtou, director of the new nuclear program in France.
In July 2024, the second Guillou report gave the go-ahead to launch the detailed plans, which must be 75% finalized during the first concrete of the first EPR2 at Penly, planned for 2028, i.e. in barely four years. External experts are calling for regulation to be made more secure, with the launch of a new nuclear program in France to be the subject of a law which has still not been passed. They also ask to secure the financing method, while EDF will have already spent 3 billion euros on the project at the end of 2024 and must still spend 2 billion in 2025 and 3 billion in 2026.
A “70 month” task force
But to take on the new challenge of 70 months, “we created a task force a few months ago to look for good ideas in other industries as well as abroad and to look for innovations”explains Nicolas Machtou. EDF’s supply chain teams have already visited China, where their Hualong reactor was built in 68 months.» A model from which EDF wants to draw inspiration to optimize the organization of civil engineering, planning, transport and the organization of construction sites.
It is the teams of Gabriel Oblin, the director of the EPR2 program since 2014, who are working on these good practices which will have to be shared with Eiffage, which won the Penly civil engineering contract for 4 billion euros. To achieve the objective of 70 months, it will no longer be necessary, as before, to wait for the end of civil engineering, which lasts 3 to 4 years, to launch the electrotechnical assembly, but to begin this only 18 months after the start of the work. , explains an EDF executive.
If the ambitious objective is also intended to be mobilizing, its feasibility nevertheless remains uncertain. “We will say by the end of the year how we will achieve this objective”assures the director of the new nuclear program France. Failing or delaying is not an option anyway. The director of the DINN is waiting for the new costing from EDF in November to be able to audit it. “We are working to converge on a quote, a timetable and a financing model by the end of the year,” explains Joël Barre.explains Joël Barre. The latter recalls that “ultimately, the cost of the electricity produced by the reactors depends on the construction time”. It is therefore also the maintenance of electro-intensive industries in the territory and the attractiveness of the France site which are at stake.
Source: www.usinenouvelle.com
