Record low French nuclear output?

Away from the drama and uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19 virus outbreak, we take a close look at France’s nuclear fleet and discuss how production this year could fall to multi-year lows. 

For expert views and analysis of the impact of the coronavirus on energy market, please visit covid19.montelnews.com. 

Host: 

• Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel. 

Guest: 

• Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel. 

Transcript

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 0:04

Hello listeners and welcome to the Montel Weekly Podcast, bring You Energy Matters in an informal setting away from the constantly unfolding drama. That is the Coronavirus outbreak of which you can hear daily updates on the Montel Daily Extra Pod. The subject matter today is France, and in particular its nuclear fleet. If you have wondered about 10 year inspections. And much more about France's Aging reactors. You've come to the right place. Joining me, Richard Sverrisson is my colleague, Chris Eales, Montel's, editor France. So Chris, welcome. Bonjour Isha. Bonjour indeed. Now, there have been some quite severe issues with French nuclear reactors in recent years.

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 0:51

Yeah. I mean, it's been, we've talked about this. Before, and we'll talk about it again and again and again and again. No doubt. Because it seems to be history repeating itself. I mean, yeah, there've been serious issues, maintenance, overrunning, all kinds of problems. And new ones too, which we will discover and there isn't really any sign of it getting any better.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 1:11

I mean, the reactors themselves aren't getting any younger

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 1:14

No. This is the problem that these reactors are all many of them are reaching close to 40 years and they will have their. Fourth, 10 year visits, which means we'll come, yeah, we'll come to that later. We'll come to that.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 1:25

So the reactors are getting older, maybe some of the security measures are getting stricter as well, or more stringent?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 1:32

Yes. There are examples of certain in, at certain plants where. The French Safety Authority a SN has upped their surveillance, that's the word they use. It's not some kind of spy film, but they say reinforce surveillance in one or two, one or two plants. We've seen this. And this means that, yeah, they're carrying out more inspections. And so the controls are the scrutiny. As close to scrutiny, and that means they're finding more problems.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 1:59

The more they look, maybe the more they find. I mean, that's, uh, you could argue, yeah, but of course that's the way we want it because these, we want these to be absolutely safe. So we want them to be sort of heavily scrutinized. I mean, I think that's what is in, in everyone's, uh, best interest. We've seen sort of. Production at these units. They, it is been quite variable, hasn't it, over the years? Uh, maybe gradually sort of, uh, decreasing. I think at the peak, maybe four years ago they were producing around 400 terawatt hours a year. Would that be correct?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 2:29

Yes. Yeah. It's a very rough figure that, I dunno, exactly. But yes, I do know that this time last year. Jean Burnell, Levi, the CEO of EDF was talking about how the firm had planned to hit 420 tart hours a year, and that it was no longer going to, that those targets were, it would never meet those targets, you know, at least not in the, in the foreseeable future. So they, EDF signaled last year a slide in nuclear production, and that's what we've seen. Last year, 2019. Nuclear output. Hit a three year low. It was 3, 7, 7, 9. Failed to reach their target and went to that three, three year low,

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 3:14

even though they re, they revised their target through throughout the year, didn't they?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 3:18

This is, this old, the old, their old trick of revising nuclear output, you know, saying there's no problem. Well, more or less saying we are very sure we will meet these targets. You can guarantee we will meet these targets. And of course they don't and they change the target. And then we've seen this and we saw at the end of last year, they changed the target at the end of the year and fell short. So again,

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 3:38

what was the original, the outset it was 3 9 5. Was it 3 9 5 tero hours a year?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 3:42

Yeah. 3, 9 5. It was, and in the end it hit 3, 7, 9 0.5 a three year low. Okay. You know, it's getting poorer, let's put it that way. Yeah. Okay. I

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 3:50

mean, it's still. It's still a lot of electricity, of course, but, um, what is EDFS forecast for for this year?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 3:56

Yeah. So this year in February, they cut the 2020 Albert target to a range. Now they're talking about a range. They're not giving us, interestingly, a new technique. They're not giving us a specific figure. They're giving us a range. So we've got a floor of 3 7 5 OTT towers and a ceiling of three nine oh OTT towers. So this gives them a bit more leeway. And suggests that they are quite uncertain. Uh, well, you know, indicates uncertainty. More uncertainty. If output were to fall to the floor level, the 3, 7, 5 terawatt hours, that would be the lowest since 1999. Now, that's a 21 year low. If it was to go fall that far.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 4:38

That's quite astonishing. So, I mean, I suppose they're giving themselves that floor. They're giving themselves leeway that range, which they haven't done before. And just to do that as you mentioned, Chris. Yeah, it is quite interesting.

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 4:48

Yeah. Yeah. It's a different approach. They are accepting or telling us something else, you know, that they, they really can't. Predict as much as they, perhaps they just can't predict I, it's possible, you know? Mm-hmm. They can't be as accurate as they were before. They're, they're coming up against so many different problems. I mean, just this quote, in addition, when they announced the new, the floor and ceiling targets, they said, in addition to the unavailability on scheduled outages, there are other reoccur recurrent. Causes of non-production tests, unplanned outages, modulation of operation, environmental constraints, network constraints, which represent a volume of about 20 to 30 terawatt hours. That's why they gave the, the range there. It's fluid as, let take it where they would like to say inch of

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 5:29

salt, maybe. Yeah. Itself Acknowledges there's some problems that some plants. We've seen that. In 2016, in 2017, 18, and last year as well. What can we expect this year and what are the reactors that we really need to keep a close eye on, Chris?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 5:43

Okay. I think, I mean, it's always difficult, you know, I've, you've asked me this before and uh, it is difficult to,

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 5:49

I'll ask you again.

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 5:50

Yeah, yeah. How many times can you ask me? 30 times?

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 5:52

Yeah. Something like that. Have a lunch on the 31st time. Like, like I can mention actually when I'm very disappointed that you're not wearing double denim today. But anyway, let's back on track, shall we? The reactors to look for in, in 2020?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 6:03

Yeah. Yeah. That just gives me time to think of an answer. Yeah. Now the reactors to look for. Okay. Having said that, I'm not gonna tell you. I will try to tell you. Flamanville is definitely a nuclear power plant that where we've seen problems, it has two reactors. 2.7 gigawatts, one reactor offline for over a year, another eight or nine months. We had seen a situation there where Flamanville was put under what they call enhanced surveillance. I. By the safety authority last September. The BDI. Yes. The BDI that, those people. People in white coats. Yes. This is an example of what I was talking about before actually where enhanced surveillance, because of so many problems with maintenance errors, subcontract issue, sub issues with subcontracts, is not doing their job, their jobs up to standard according to EDF meant that. A SN stepped in, put the plant under enhanced super, under enhanced surveillance. And so they found more issues. And the latest issue at Flamanville, actually, EDF, announced micro cracks. You know, when we, whenever anyone hears cracks and reactors

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 7:12

not a good combination.

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 7:13

No, no, no. Those. Two, those two shouldn't be put together. We've heard it at Flamanville and the cracks concern turbine engine at Flamanville according to EDF, it's only a part of the turbine, but it's very unclear when these reactors will restart. EDF says, for example, I mean, I'm going on about flammable, but it, but it is an interesting case they say. According to Remit, 31st of May, they'll both be back online. But a SN once again has a much more cautious line and set, has told Montel that it's far too early to say when these reactors might come online because of the micro crack issues. Not only that, but back to this enhanced surveillance, there's, you know, they're finding more, more, more problems and, and there's a lot of work to be done there. So flam is definitely one to look out for. Another issue, which affects a couple of plants is earthquake resistance. There was an earthquake late last year. Wow. Very close to Tristan, south France. Okay. So close to one of the oldest reactors, Tristan, and being one of the oldest reactors in France, which already has had issues with dam around the plant being big enough to cope with any flooding in as a, in the event of a, of an earth. Quake of a certain size, you know? Mm. So this earthquake has made, uh, A-A-S-N-A little bit nervous about nuclear power plants in the area, and they've said, well, look, maybe at Tristan and Crew, as we we're gonna have a look at their defenses, and we're going to see. Is it time they're asking the question, is it time to re have another look at, in general earthquake resistant standards? You know? Mm. So possibly, I mean, I don't know this, but it's possible. It's, it's something to keep an eye on. A SN could ask EDF to reinforce defenses, quake defenses at Tristan and KU has, and, and that would lead to other delays, you know, and should it do so, could it build these defenses? The plant's online or would it have to do with, do it when the plant's offline? That, that, I mean, it's pretty early. It's, it's too early to know that because they're still deciding whether or not they need to review. Uh, well they are reviewing quake defenses, but they haven't decided yet whether they need to do the work. So it's a little bit early to say, you know, without knowing what kind of work it will be. But there is that danger. Yeah, I think that's very real danger. And that's another one to look at. Also, there's been problems at Pawell, another reactor. The EDF haven't been too forthcoming about explaining the reasons for that outage. We need to dig a little bit deeper and find out what's going on there. But that's another issue also in the north of France. On the coast. Coast, it's on, the Paola is on the coast, so that's another one to look out for

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 9:46

because they've said there's, they've mentioned high tides as a reason for the outage.

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 9:50

Yes. I mean, that's a specific outage, but I was talking about a more, a longer running outage in Powerway, but Okay. But no, the more recent case, which is interesting, is interesting because I think this is a first of a kind. I might, I might be wrong, but I think we haven't seen this as before, that EDF actually says, oh, we have to turn off reactors or cut capacity at reactors because of high tides. Too much water. We don't know exactly what happened and what it's something we, we are looking into. What, what is the link between a high tide and, because

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 10:24

it raises, yeah, it raises the question as well. How high is high? I mean, yeah. How high, just how high. How high. High. How high can you get? Go, go. Exactly. Chris, thank you. My words. Exactly. But um, now how high, how high is high? Yeah, it's good question. Well, so where's the level? I mean, is it one meter? Is it, is it six? You know, I mean, obviously it probably isn't six meters, but now. Those are the reactors to watch for. So FLA polo, both on the, on the channel coast Northern France. Tristan is more in the South. In the South, yeah. And for those listeners who, you know, may not be aware what a SN is, it's the, uh, it's, there's the Nuclear Safety Authority in France, isn't there? Yeah. Okay. So these are, these are some. Issues at reactors that are kind of ongoing. But in addition to these, there are, what you mentioned, national, these are, some of the reactors are going through their fourth 10 year investigations. What's happening here and where's that happening?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 11:13

Yes. Well, we have a situation where a lot of French reactors, uh, aging and they're reaching their 40 years old and there is, it turns out a large. Volume of so-called 10 year inspections. Six are planned this year, uh, the same as last year, which is pretty worrying, I would say for EDF because last year, you know, as I said earlier, the targets were all missed, uh, and mostly because of extensions to outages at 10 year. Visits, 10 year visits. We said that these are the, these are the visits that allow, they aim to give EDF the green light to continue operating reactors for another 10 years. So they become increasingly important as reactors age. We are in a situation now where we have a high volume of these outages planned six this year. You said six this year. And you can see the details of each reactor. On RTS website, RT tso's website, but it does mean that, you know, and hence maybe why we have this range as well, because you, I, I would expect the same problems as, as last year. I mean, you could argue that maybe EDF has learned from the mistakes or the time it's taken. Perhaps they've learned from last year's outages. How long do these inspections normally take? Well, they used to, is there a set, is there a set kind of timeframe? Well, it was, it was three to four months, but now they seem to be offline for even longer. You know, we're going past six months and it's been going, we have really lengthy outages. You know, and ville is a case as well, that's. Farmville's been off for over a year. One of the reactors there, and that was, these are linked to 10 year outages. So if you delay outages, the 10 year outages in one year, it is a knock on effect for the following year as well. For your planning. It has a big impact on the planning because there's only a certain number of. Experts to go round, you know, to do this work. So it creates chaos in the, in the planning schedules. Absolutely. And I think,

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 13:04

you know, perhaps given that context of these, these 10 year investigations and the expected delays, then we could be looking at more of, um, 3 7 5 target rather than a three 90 terawatt target. Can we? I think potentially, yes. Yeah, but it's, who knows. But another thing, Chris, which I, you know, which I wanted to touch upon with you was. You know, a lot of the issues that we saw in 2016 and 17 with the reactors in France were due to items or, or reactor pieces, or, you know, parts of the plant that were manufactured at the lu cruso forge in, in France. Now has that investigation into these parts, is that now complete and have they all got a clean bill of health?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 13:45

Yes. The investigation into equipment that made for nuclear power plants in France has. Been completed. EDF says they've gone through all the files. That part of the investigations is over. They have found anomalies, compliance problems. There's a whole list of them on EDFS website. In fact, you know, ranging from very minor issues to we, it's quite difficult to know whether these are serious issues or whether what impact they have on the running of, uh, you know, on scheduled outages or, or possible maintenance in the future. But they found an awful lot of problems. That's for sure. You know, at all these reactors, they've given them the all clear. I mean, the reality is that they've said these reactors are clear to be restarted and to if they were stopped and to carry on running safely, but they did nonetheless find a lot of issues so. That's more maintenance, that's more, more work, you know? Absolutely. But the fact that it's

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 14:38

over, that's, that's, that's good news in some, some sense then.

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 14:41

Yes. I mean the whole thing, you know, good news

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 14:43

means that, you know, there's not to this sort of shadow hanging over those reactors that they have been, you know, they are.

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 14:50

But I think people will be watching very carefully to see if there's any repeat of this kind of behavior with the alleged fraud that happened at Lazo documents which were unfit for service being. Being checked off as if they were. And I think that's probably made people made the safety authority and maybe the regulator much more wary. So these things, you know, these, I don't have any information to say that something else will crop up, but wouldn't rule it out.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 15:18

Yeah, absolutely. Given past experience, I think, uh, it, uh, seems. Kind of likely. Okay. Moving on to another subject, Chris, I think coming up here is a review of the whole Aaron proposal. The whole Aaron law. Could you explain what this is all about?

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 15:34

Yeah. Aaron is the rate at which EDF currently sells 25% of its nuclear output to rivals, 42 euros per megawatt hour. That's a figure set by the government, CRE the French regulator. So that's the price at which EDF sells. Some of its nuclear outputs arrivals. However, EDF has long been complaining that is too low and that they are basically giving away their nuclear power on the cheap two rivals at prices way below market levels. So they've been campaigning for a long time. For more, for a higher rate. On the other hand, suppliers themselves who buy this stuff, they wanna buy more obviously because it's a good deal. Yeah. So they want to extend the the volumes available. They were asking for 150 T hours, some of the some of the rival suppliers. Now the government has come up with a proposal, which would introduce a, something called a price corridor under this system. Virtually all of edfs annual nuclear output will be sold on the wholesale market, but the price corridor means that EDF will have to compensate suppliers if prices go above a certain. Level. However, if they go below a certain floor then the supplies will have to reinforce money to EDF. In fact, that looks like arguably a good deal for EDF. Because what they were concerned about was that when wholesale prices were high, they weren't getting a good deal. So now they can be compensated for that. So, you know, arguably that's going to boost edfs coffers and. That is what the government has said. The aim of the proposal is one of the aims in order to allow them to carry out the maintenance and the, in order to keep these reactors in service to extend the lifetime of the reactors. So it's a very important reform. In fact. When does, I mean, when does the government expect to sign this off? I think by May. Uh, we should have some idea of what this reform at the moment, the reform isn't out for consultation, public consultation. That could just be meaningless, but, you know, usually is. But at the end of May the government will perhaps tell us clearly what they plan to do, but at the moment we've got this price floor, price ceiling with a six euro gap between the two and analysts arguing that something like a 42 floor and a 48 ceiling is likely.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 18:00

Okay. That's, I mean, I think. And then of course the, the European Commission needs to sign it off or approve it. Yeah. Which is also not a given because I think, you know, what they are increasingly looking at is kinda regional solutions to domestic problems. I don't see so much regional here. I see more national. So that could be potentially an issue.

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 18:17

Yeah. I mean, I, that. You know, people, analysts have also pointed out that the, you know, the EC hasn't given its green light to this at all yet. The talks are ongoing at the moment between the EC and French government. Yeah. On this issue, you have to say that the context of those discussions is a change, a restructure. To EDF. So there's a lot of bargaining going on about how what can EDF get if they come into line with EC demands on competition? How would this reform work? If EDF is actually buying on the wholesale market its own supplies. You need it, you need to have a split between sales and distribution and and production, you know?

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 18:54

Mm. I mean, it sounds like Chris, there's a. Plenty of stuff and plenty of topics here that we will return to. Yeah. In the course, in the course of the year,

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 19:02

free structure's gonna be big workshop.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 19:05

Absolutely. Well, Chris, thanks very much for, for joining the Montel Pod. I'm sure we'll have all the fans clamoring for double denim for the next the next episode where you're on the pod. But again

Chris Eales, Editor France, Montel: 19:16

I'll do my best to get some double denim, I'll get down to the LA direct.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel: 19:19

Just, just look in your wardrobe. Thanks Chris. And that's all for now. Listeners, please follow all our news on Monte News and you can follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you. Goodbye.