Paluel Nuclear Power Plant

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Paluel Nuclear Power Plant is in the French town of Paluel, Normandy, in Seine-Maritime. It has four 1,330 MW pressurized water reactors, giving a total electrical capacity of about 5.3 GW. The plant is owned by EDF and operated by EDFN. It uses water from the English Channel to cool the reactors and employs about 1,250 people.

Paluel is one of France’s largest nuclear plants. It typically sends about 21,000 GWh of electricity to the grid each year, and its facilities are among the biggest in the country. Construction began for Unit 1 in August 1977 and for Units 2, 3, and 4 in 1978–1980. Units 1–2 began operating on 1 December 1985, Unit 3 on 1 February 1986, and Unit 4 on 1 June 1986.

Notable events include a 2016 incident when a 450-ton steam generator fell onto the reactor floor at Paluel 2 during maintenance, delaying its restart until July 2018 after repairs and testing. There have also been cooling-water blockages from macroalgae in the English Channel that caused automatic reactor trips; EDF has looked for solutions with Gunderboom, Inc. to prevent this in the future.