Nuclear: Favorable opinion to extend the operation of reactor number 1 of the Tricastin power plant by ten years

Nuclear ASN's opinion “indicates that the reactor can continue to operate until its next review” and therefore its next ten-year inspection

Orano Tricastin. — Bony/SIPA

It’s a first. The authority security (ASN) issued a positive opinion to EDF to extend the operating life of reactor number 1 at the Tricastin power plant (Drôme) by ten years, according to an opinion which AFP learned on Monday. This reactor “is the first reactor in the French nuclear fleet on which the ASN takes a position at the end of the year. Following its fourth periodic safety review, after about 40 years of operation,” in a published notice last August 10.

In 2021, ASN took a position on the generic phase of the fourth periodic safety review of 900 MW reactors, such as those at Tricastin, “which focused on the points common to; all these reactors,” she recalls in this opinion. The ASN had thus “considered that all of the provisions planned by EDF and those that it had prescribed opened up the prospect of continued operation of these reactors for the ten years following their fourth periodic safety review” ;.

Another decade

After an in-depth examination specific to the Tricastin reactor, “ASN’considers that the conclusions of the fourth periodic safety review of the reactor, the actions planned by EDF and those taken in response to ASN”s decision (…) will enable the objectives set for this periodic safety review to be achieved,” says ASN in this opinion.

The ASN’s opinion “indicates that the reactor can continue to operate. operate until his next exam” and therefore its next ten-year visit, indicated; to AFP Yves Guannel, head of the “assaults and security reviews” to the ASN’s Nuclear Power Plants Department.

Modernization and extension of the lifetime of power plants

This extension was made possible by the work undertaken by EDF as part of its “Grand fairing” since 2014 to renovate the French nuclear fleet and increase the level of safety; reactors in order to continue their operation significantly beyond 40 years old. It nevertheless takes on particular resonance, a few months after the announcement by the Elysée Palace of the “launch of studies making it possible to prepare for the extension of the duration life of existing power plants at; 60 years and beyond, pending the construction of new generation EPR2 jet engines.

The bill for the “large fairing” , modernization program and extension of the life of the power plants beyond 40 years old, is assessed at around 66 billion euros. The government is also carrying out a six-to-one program. 14 EPR reactors, estimated at 51.7 billion for the first six.

are “aligned” on those planned for the latest generation reactors, assured Yves Guannell. In particular, he mentioned “a new level of heat wave hazard,” so that the reactor can withstand “ temperature levels higher than what had been experienced. planned for the design”.