Link to the study - European Parliament - Europa

Policy Department D: Budgetary Affairs
____________________________________________________________________________________________
decommissioning. As can be seen, enough projects fulfill both criteria, the size and the operating
time duration before shutdown.
Figure 6 (on page 36) adds information about the time elapsed after entering the shutdown state
and today, Figure 1 (on page 32) adds the number of reactors under shutdown by countries. As
can be seen, about half of the reactors have been in this condition for more than 15 years, so that
enough examples can be found that are in an advanced stage of decommissioning.
Thus, the most promising countries for identifying examples are France (12 reactors, most of them
twin facilities), the UK (29 reactors, most of them twin facilities), and Germany (27 reactors, mixed
single and multiple facilities on one site).
In respect to the operator type of organisation
All of the French projects are owned and decommissioned by a private operator that is majorly
owned by the government;
The projects in the UK were operated mainly by public companies and are decommissioned
under the umbrella of the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA), a publicly owned and
controlled entity;
In Germany six of the projects are in federal ownership, the majority is privately owned.
With this background the following can be concluded:
In France, EDF as the private owner of 9 nuclear power plants in shutdown state developed the
general decommissioning strategy for the reactors to be decommissioned. This overall
decommissioning strategy will be described and subsequently, the decommissioning of the
pressurized water reactor BNI 163 (Chooz A) will be briefly presented and discussed as a selected
example that fulfills the selection criteria.
From the UK, the reactors decommissioned by Sellafield Ltd are selected. Sellafield Ltd is the Site
Licence Company that manages and operates, on behalf of the NDA, the reprocessing and waste
storage facilities at Sellafield and the former nuclear power stations Calder Hall and Windscale
(all in West Cumbria).
From Germany, the decommissioning of the five reactors at Greifswald is selected as most
representative example for an in-depth analysis. This project fits all of the criteria best (size,
owner organisation type, advanced decommissioning stage, etc.).
3.2. SELECTED EXAMPLE FROM FRANCE: EDF
The following chapters describe the EDF approach to decommissioning to identify best practices.
3.2.1. Overall framework of the decommissioning project
The following state owned companies and commercial entities are responsible for decommissioning
activities in France:
French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) as a state research institution,
The Waste Management Agency (ANDRA),
54