Released April 21, 2009 | GALWAY, IRELAND
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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Strike action by French energy workers is continuing to impact the country's power capacity after two of the affected power plants agreed to continue their 24-hour strikes from last week into the weekend and through Monday.
Workers at the Chinon nuclear plant in southwestern France confirmed to Industrial Info Resources that their strike on Wednesday, April 15, would carry on throughout the weekend. It has since been confirmed by French trade unions that the strike will continue through Monday at Chinon and on Tuesday at the Dampierre nuclear plant in central France.
"There is no strike here today [Monday] but workers will be striking tomorrow," a spokeswoman of the Dampierre plant said. "I do not think there will be any impact to power capacity."
The Chinon plant, which employs 1,200 people, has seven reactors in all, but only four second-generation pressurised water reactors (PWR) are operational, generating a combined 3,600 megawatts (MW) of power. Three older Magnox reactors on-site were decommissioned in 1973, 1980 and 1995. The Dampierre nuclear plant also utilises four PWR reactors.
The 24-hour strike last Wednesday reduced French output by about 6,000 MW and was staged by employees of the national utility, Electricite de France (EPA:EDF) (EDF) (Paris, France) over pay. The reduction represented about 5.5% of France's total output and hit five of the country's 19 nuclear power plants, which supply about 80% of the nation's power. Workers are looking for a 5% pay raise and a bonus, and more strikes are planned.
EDF claimed that the outage had not affected the balance of the grid. This is the latest in a series of one-day stoppages by French energy workers. A strike on April 9 saw 5% of EDF's workforce stop working while another strike on March 19 resulted in 28% of EDF workers being out of action and reduced capacity by 10,500 MW.
EDF will be hit again in the coming week with two more 24-hour stoppages planned for April 21 and April 23. Outages are expected to be similar to those experienced in the latest strike.
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.
Workers at the Chinon nuclear plant in southwestern France confirmed to Industrial Info Resources that their strike on Wednesday, April 15, would carry on throughout the weekend. It has since been confirmed by French trade unions that the strike will continue through Monday at Chinon and on Tuesday at the Dampierre nuclear plant in central France. "There is no strike here today [Monday] but workers will be striking tomorrow," a spokeswoman of the Dampierre plant said. "I do not think there will be any impact to power capacity."
The Chinon plant, which employs 1,200 people, has seven reactors in all, but only four second-generation pressurised water reactors (PWR) are operational, generating a combined 3,600 megawatts (MW) of power. Three older Magnox reactors on-site were decommissioned in 1973, 1980 and 1995. The Dampierre nuclear plant also utilises four PWR reactors.
The 24-hour strike last Wednesday reduced French output by about 6,000 MW and was staged by employees of the national utility, Electricite de France (EPA:EDF) (EDF) (Paris, France) over pay. The reduction represented about 5.5% of France's total output and hit five of the country's 19 nuclear power plants, which supply about 80% of the nation's power. Workers are looking for a 5% pay raise and a bonus, and more strikes are planned.
EDF claimed that the outage had not affected the balance of the grid. This is the latest in a series of one-day stoppages by French energy workers. A strike on April 9 saw 5% of EDF's workforce stop working while another strike on March 19 resulted in 28% of EDF workers being out of action and reduced capacity by 10,500 MW.
EDF will be hit again in the coming week with two more 24-hour stoppages planned for April 21 and April 23. Outages are expected to be similar to those experienced in the latest strike.
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.
