French utility EDF has announced that its board of directors had taken a step towards closure of its oldest operating nuclear power plant, the Fessenheim station, the age of which – it was commissioned in 1977 – has given opponents an argument for pressuring the company to shut down the reactor.
EDF said the reasoning behind the closure was France's energy transition law that sets a ceiling of 63.2 GW for installed nuclear electricity generation capacity in France. “This means that the commissioning of the Flamanville 3 EPR,” which is currently under construction, “is conditional upon the shutdown on the same date of an equivalent generation capacity,” EDF said.
EDF said its board had approved the terms and protocol for the closure and authorized the company's Chief Executive Officer Jean-Bernard Levy to sign the closure agreement. The protocol includes a compensation package for EDF that includes “a fixed initial portion covering the anticipated costs associated with the closure (costs of staff retraining, decommissioning, the INB tax and “post-operational costs), which were estimated at $526 million, 20 percent of which would be paid in 2019 and 80 percent in 2021.
Compensation also includes “a further, variable portion giving rise, where applicable, to subsequent payments” that would reflect the company's shortfall up to 2041. This portion will depend on market prices and EDF's 900 MW generation volumes without Fessenheim in operation, the company said.
The protocol, the company said, would also require a decree that revokes the license to operate Fessenheim, which would be issued at the request of the company and which would take effect “at the same time as the commissioning of Flamanville 3 EPR, scheduled for late 2018.”
"EDF is guaranteeing compliance with legislation imposing a ceiling for France's installed nuclear electricity generation capacity, while at the same time safeguarding to the utmost the interests of the company and its customers,” Levy said in a statement.
Plans for the plant's closure have been in the works since 2012, when President Francois Hollande said Fessenheim would close by 2016. There has long been pressure from nuclear opponents from Germany and Switzerland to have the plant close, given the location of the facility, which is less than two miles from the German boarder and less than 25 miles from Switzerland.