French nuclear operator EDF aims to build at least one large reactor a year during the 2030s, CEO Luc Remont said at the World Nuclear Exhibition in Paris on Tuesday.
The company is working on the construction of six new EPR2 reactors in France, two new EPRs in Britain at the Sizewell site, as well as projects in India, the Czech Republic and Poland.
“We are counting on an accelerated rate of construction capacity for large reactors to (build on) what we have today, that is to say one or two per decade, (…) and gradually increase to one or even 1.5 per year,” Remont told reporters at the event.
The CEO said that the pace of construction will increase gradually, with the objective of achieving it “during the next decade.”
Remont said EDF aims to build a series of reactors and “standardization on a large scale” after the decades’ long delays at the Flamanville site and would focus on Europe first.
He added that EDF had “neither the vocation (…), nor the means to be an investor everywhere”.
“There are countries in which we will simply be developers – in part – and suppliers of technologies, or simply suppliers of technologies,” he said.
“We are going to adapt, even in Europe, to these different modes of intervention based firstly on what the partners we work with want and then also obviously on our own means.”
Referring to the project to build six EPR reactors in India, at Jaitapur, Remont noted “the Indian authorities’ desire to move forward”, without commenting on a possible decision-making timetable.
Source: Reuters
