Tricastin 3 clears third decennial inspection

Wednesday, 10 June 2015

The French nuclear regulator has given EDF permission to operate unit 3 of its four-unit Tricastin nuclear power plant in southern France for a further ten years.

The French Nuclear Safety Authority (Autorité De Sûreté Nucléaire, ASN) said that EDF successfully completed a third ten-year safety review for Tricastin 3 on 2 June. The review comprised a review of the unit's compliance with safety requirements and a reassessment of security measures at the plant.

In a 9 June statement announcing its decision, the ASN said it has "no objection to the continued operation of the reactor beyond its third periodic safety review."

However, the ASN issued EDF with additional requirements for the unit's continued operation. It now requires EDF to implement most of the post-Fukushima safety upgrades imposed in June 2012 and January 2014 before the end of 2017.

The next ten-year safety review for Tricastin 3 - a 900 MWe pressurised water reactor that entered commercial operation in May 1981 - is to take place before 5 March 2023.

Tricastin 1 - also a 900 MWe PWR which began operating in December 1980 - was the first French reactor to undergo its third decennial outage. In December 2010, ASN extended the unit's operating licence by ten years, to 2020. In February, the ASN approved a further ten years of operation of Tricastin 2.

All 34 of France's 900 MWe reactors had their lifetimes extended by ten years in 2002, after their second ten-yearly review. Most started up in the late 1970s to early 1980s, and they are reviewed together in a process that takes four months at each unit. A review of the 1300 MWe class followed and in October 2006 the ASN cleared all 20 units for an extra ten years' operation conditional upon minor modifications at their 20-year outages over 2005-14. The third ten-year inspections of the 900 MWe series began in 2009 and will run to 2020. The third ten-year inspections of the 1300 MWe series will run from 2015 to 2024.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News