French utility and nuclear plant developer EDF said Tuesday that full pressure and temperature simulations known as hot tests would get underway at the long-delayed Flamanville Unit 3 Pressurized Water Rector (PWR) in the second half of February.
The schedule has been revised from the previous estimate, announced in July 2018, that the hot tests would commence by the end of that year.
The July announcement came with the statement that the revised construction cost for Flamanville 3 had gone up from $11.93 billion to $12.38 billion. It also coincided with final preparations required after the final pre-start up inspections had been complete, noting that there were 33 unacceptable welds in the systems that needed to be repaired and 20 others that needed to be redone.
On Tuesday, EDF the company “actively continues to implement the action plan on welds of the main secondary system announced on 25 July 2018.”
The entire statement goes on to say, “The new ‘hot tests’ are now scheduled to commence during the second half of February.”
“The teams of EDD and its industrial partners remains fully mobilized to complete the loading of nuclear fuel during the fourth quarter of 2019 under target construction costs for EDF at the commissioning date kept at 10.9 billion euros ($12.38 billion).”