EDF_REGISTRATION_DOCUMENT_2017

PRESENTATION OF EDF GROUP Description of the Group's activities

In view of the measures taken by the project management team, construction costs have been kept to the budgeted €10.5 billion (1) excluding interim interest. These tight budget and schedule are subject to the ASN administrative authorisation timeframe outlined below. Interactions with the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) The examination of the application for the commissioning, submitted in March 2015, continues with the ASN. The three expert Committees mandated by the ASN help bring together all of the technical requirements the EPR must satisfy. At end 2017, 94% of the commissioning application had been examined. A group of permanent experts is scheduled to meet at the end of the first half of 2018 to give its opinion on whether or not to allow the commissioning of the facility. The request for authorisation for a partial commissioning in order to allow the hot functional tests and the reception of fuel on site, are also being examined by the ASN. In March 2017 EDF obtained another delay in commissioning Flamanville 3; this delay is now scheduled for April 2020. The permission to build Decree of 10 April 2007 had initially set the delay at 10 years. Quality equipment manufacturing At the end of 2017, most of the equipment of the nuclear section, such as the conventional island, has been delivered and installed on site. Changes in the equipment quality situation for the primary cooling system manufactured by AREVA NP - Framatome are described below. In the first half of 2017 the ASN examined higher-than expected carbon levels in the vessel head and bottom on the basis of documentation submitted by AREVA NP under the supervision of EDF. The documentation drew on more than 1,600 tests and measurements and was sent to the ASN at the end of 2016. Based on the opinion on 11 October 2017 of a group of experts appointed by it, the ASN considered the mechanical features of the vessel head and bottom to be up to requirements including in the event of an accident. After the regulatory hydropower tests of the primary coolant system, scheduled to take place around the end of the first half of 2018, the ASN will decide on: the commissioning of the vessel bottom (contingent on appropriate checks); ■ the commissioning of the vessel head whose lifespan will be limited to 2024 due ■ to the current technical infeasibility of checks similar to the vessel bottom. EDF is already working on developing new vessel head checks that meet the ASN's requirements and has given itself two years to study and demonstrate their industrial feasibility before going back to the ASN and asking it to look at keeping the current vessel head under the new checks.

The last of the Flamanville 3 equipment made at the Creusot forge was inspected in 2017: the positional deviation in the forging ingot used for the manufacture of a ferrule ■ for a steam generator called for a series of tests on a sacrificial part. The tests began in early October 2017 under the supervision of a body appointed by the ASN and ended with results deemed satisfactory by AREVA NP, EDF and the ASN; the remaining cases – 95 instances of an anomaly (noncompliance of a part with ■ contractual or regulatory requirements) and 16 instances of noncompliance (noncompliance of a contract with internal manufacturing requirements) – were definitively closed once AREVA NP provided technical evidence for the parts were fit for service which was validated in turn by EDF and independent bodies appointed by the ASN. The technical evidence was collected during assembling and testing which did not lead to any delays in the overall schedule of the project. Furthermore, on 30 November 2017, EDF declared a significant event to the Nuclear Safety Authority regarding the detection of a deviation in the quality of the welding in the pipes that transfer the steam from steam generators to the turbine at Flamanville 3 EPR. The circuit that transfers the steam from the steam generators to the turbine of the Flamanville 3 EPR (main steam line) was designed and manufactured according to the "break preclusion concept". This approach consists in strengthening requirements for design, manufacture and monitoring in service. These strengthened requirements, requested by EDF, also involve a "high quality" requirement in the building of these circuits (2) . However, these requirements were applied during the design phase but were not correctly specified to the suppliers. Consequently, the welding of the main steam lines was not completed in compliance with this high quality requirement, which led EDF to declare a significant event to the ASN. These pipes are nevertheless compliant with the nuclear pressure equipment regulations. Following this declaration, the ASN wrote to EDF to initiate the inquiry into this deviation. EDF confirms that it has already initiated analyses and mechanical tests that have yielded satisfactory results, and that it has drafted the briefing memo needed for the inquiry into this deviation by the ASN. Finally, EDF is reviewing all additional measures that may be implemented to offset past deviations. All these items will be provided to the ASN within two months. At the same time, the work on the facility is continuing in accordance with the schedule, but the inquiry into this matter by the ASN, along with other expected validations, may nevertheless affect the schedule.

1.

In 2015 euros. (1) Once these requirements had been laid out, the assumption of a break in the piping during the safety demonstration did not need to be examined. The safety demonstration (2) proves that accidents are physically impossible or extremely unlikely, or that the consequences are limited under acceptable economic conditions and with a high degree of confidence.

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DF I Reference Document 2017