French auditor warns of challenges to EPR2 programme

Tuesday, 14 January 2025

In February 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the time was right for a nuclear renaissance in France, saying the operation of all existing reactors should be extended without compromising safety and unveiling a proposed programme for six new EPR2 reactors, with an option for a further eight EPR2 reactors to follow. The first three pairs of EPR2 reactors are proposed to be built, in order, at the Penly, Gravelines and Bugey sites. Construction is expected to start in 2027. The cost was originally estimated at EUR51.7 billion (USD53 billion), but this was revised to EUR67.4 billion in 2023. EDF is expected to make a final investment decision on the project next year.

The EPR-2 reactor is a pressurised water reactor project developed by EDF and Framatome. It meets the general safety objectives of the third generation of reactors. Its aim is to incorporate design, construction and commissioning experience feedback from the EPR reactor, as well as operating experience from the nuclear reactors currently in service.

In July 2020, the Court of Auditors released a report highlighting multiple failures explaining the delays and additional costs of EPRs under construction or in operation, in particular that of Flamanville 3 in France. It recommended that EDF "calculate the forecast profitability of the Flamanville 3 reactor and of the EPR2 and ensure its monitoring".

"Since then, the context has changed significantly," the court has said in a new report. "The nuclear industry is benefiting from a more favourable international context ... A progress report on the nuclear sector and the implementation of the recommendations made by the court in 2020 is therefore necessary to assess the conditions for implementing this policy with considerable long-term challenges in financial, industrial, energy and environmental terms."

It added: "This analysis shows that, even if the French nuclear industry has begun to organise itself to implement the strategy set out in 2022, it is far from ready and must still overcome many challenges, some of which are worrying."

The Court of Auditors noted that EDF has still not provided a forecast profitability of the EPR2 programme, as recommended, and the financing of the reactors remains unclear. It says that once the funding model is announced, there is likely to be a delay of at least one year while approval from the European Commission is sought for the state funding.

"These delays and uncertainties (which affect also the number of power plants to be built) reduce the visibility of which the actors of the sector need to engage in the industrial projects of this magnitude and obtain financing," the court said. "The accumulation of risks and constraints could lead to a failure of the EPR2 programme."

"The EPR2 programme remains marked by a delay in conception, an absence of a final estimate and a financing plan while EDF remains heavily indebted, the court issues a new recommendation: Withhold the final investment decision for the EPR2 programme until its financing is secured and the detailed design studies are progressing in line with the trajectory targeted for the milestone of the first nuclear concrete," the report says.

In addition, the court recommends ensuring that "any new international project in the nuclear field generates quantified gains and does not delay the schedule of the EPR2 programme in France".

The court noted that in the UK EDF is confronted at the Hinkley Point C construction site with "a considerable increase in costs accompanied with a new delay of two years, and with a heavy financing constraint caused by the withdrawal of the Chinese co-shareholder". Meanwhile, at the planned Sizewell C project, "delays are already accumulating, even before the investment decision has been taken". The court recommends that EDF does not make a final investment decision on Sizewell C "before obtaining a significant reduction in sound financial exposure in Hinkey Point C".