Session: 05-05: Radiation Science and Nuclear Materials

Paper Number: 131809

131809 - Climate Change : Overview of the Process and Methodologies Used by Edf for Taking Into Account the Effects of Climate Change in the Design of Nuclear Power Plants 

Abstract: 

Climate Change is one of the greatest environmental challenge facing the world. Its effects are systemic and evolutive because of its dependance with human activities. For Nuclear Facilities, Climate Change can impact safety, electricity generation and environmental impacts during the different steps of the facility developpment (conception, building, operation and decommissionning) and for its entire lifetime. As Nuclear Power Plants have to play a key role in decarbonising electricity generation, it is important that those facilities are adapted and resilient to the effects of Climate Change for their entire lifetime.

Considering the possible effects of climate change, EDF has developed a systemic and evolutive approach to design and manage the adaptation process of its nuclear facilities with climate change. This approach is structured around 4 pilars (understand, characterize, mobilize and act).

The proposed article will describe the whole process and explain the goals of the different steps. It will focus on the siting and risk assessment applications. For these different applications, the method for taking into account the effects of climate change will be described and a focus on how it is applied to the safety demonstration will be given, especially for the external hazard assessments.

The screening of relevant external hazards to consider for a given site is the first step of this process. The criteria used in this step of the process can be impacted by climate change. The article will give indications on how those criteria are impacted and will propose some additionnal criteria to consider or how the existing criteria can be modified to integrate the possible effects of climate change.

Design basis values determination is the second step of the process and those values can be impacted by climate change too. The proposed article will show different methodologies that can be used for evaluating the potential evolution of these values with climate change at different timescale and for different hazards. Some methodologies are considering the IPCC scenarios but other methods can only use statistical analysis. The choice of the method to consider will be discussed and the question of how to determine the relevant margins will be discussed too.

The monitoring and collecting of operationnal experience is an important step of the process. Climate change implies to improve the tools and methodologies used to do that. The article will present the types of improvements to consider and give examples of tools and methods used at EDF for the french existing fleet of Nuclear Power Plants.

Presenting Author: Herve CORDIER EDF

Presenting Author Biography: Hervé Cordier is a Nuclear Safety and Hazard Assessment Senior Expert for the main electricity generating company in France (EDF – Electricité De France), where he has been working since 1998.
He is a graduate engineer in hydraulic, hydrology and fluid mechanics and has a master’s degree in theoretical fluid mechanics.
He started his career at EDF in 1998 as a researcher in thermal modeling for buildings and, in 2002, became a researcher in thermal hydraulic coupled with chemistry, and studied fouling issues in nuclear reactors.
From 2007 to 2012 he has been in charge of the safety doctrine for the heat sink cooling systems of the whole French nuclear fleet (58 NPPs) and new reactors (EPR, …).
From 2012 to 2017 he has been the manager of the EDF team dedicated to advanced thermalhydraulic issues for design and safety of nuclear power plants.
From 2017 to 2022 he has been the manager of the team in charge of the safety doctrine for hazards (internal and external) and in charge of the climate change’s adaptation plan of EDF’s engineering division.
He is also an associated professor in nuclear engineering at the CentraleSupélec School of engineers (Paris-Saclay University).

Authors:

Herve CORDIER EDF
Amelie Joly EDF