France expects its plans for a €70bn expansion of its nuclear energy industry will be a “major contributor” to the EU’s electricity production, Paris said after the EU Commission announced a state aid probe into the project on Tuesday (31 March).
“France’s new nuclear energy sector will, in the coming years, be a major contributor to EU-generated electricity,” the French government said in a statement.
The nuclear recovery programme announced in 2022 by France’s president Emmanuel Macron set out plans for six new nuclear reactors with a total electricity generation capacity of 9,990 megawatts.
The French state intends to support the programme by offering state energy giant EDF a subsidised government loan at a preferential rate, covering 60 percent of the total estimated construction costs of €72.8bn.
The six new reactors will be built in pairs at sites of existing nuclear power plants, namely Penly, Gravelines and Bugey. The new units are planned for commissioning between 2038 and 2044, and to have a lifetime of 60 years each.
It also plans to offer a 40 year contract to EDF “to provide stable revenues to the plants”.
The commission investigation into whether the French plan complies with the EU’s state aid rules will assess “the appropriateness and proportionality of the aid package”, as well as the risk being borne by the French taxpayer and whether the project would create “market distortion”.
But recent political signals from the EU executive suggest that Paris has little to worry about.
In a statement on Tuesday announcing the investigation, the commission said that it had “found the project necessary and considers that the aid facilitates the development of an economic activity.”
“The commission also recognises the potential contribution of the project to security of supply and decarbonisation,” it added.
The EU’s energy security, and that of its member states, has faced a series of challenges, the most recent being the spike in oil prices caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran.
In a speech at the Nuclear Energy Summit in March, commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe had made a “strategic mistake” by not supporting more nuclear energy projects.
She added that €200m in EU funding would be made available for “innovative nuclear technologies” across the bloc.
Von der Leyen said that with the EU being neither an oil nor gas producer, “the current Middle East crisis gives a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities this creates”.
Thirteen of the EU’s 27 members currently produce nuclear energy.
But Germany completed the phase out of its last three reactors in 2023 as part of a gradual exit from nuclear energy because of environmental and safety concerns following the Fukishima nuclear disaster in 2011.