Workers at Uniper's Emile Huchet 600-MW coal-fired unit 6 and its 400-MW gas-fired units 7 and 8 in France will go on strike from Monday June 13 through July 15, the company said in a note on the website of French grid operator RTE Wednesday.
Uniper -- the now separated conventional generation business of E.ON --has posted several similar strike notices since the beginning of this year, with the duration of the strikes seen at around a month or more.
Workers at Uniper's Emile Huchet units have said before they would go on strike between January 26 and March 8, but the units were seen operating on several days during that time.
"Strike notices are part of the life of these plants but the filing of a notice is not necessarily followed by a strike," Alix de Balsac, spokesman for Uniper previously told S&P Global Platts.
A market source told Platts Emile Huchet-6 was already due to be taken offline for its 10-year maintenance between May 5 and July 30, which RTE's plant availability schedule confirmed.
The company also previously said that workers at its 600-MW Provence-5 coal unit would strike for more than one month -- from May 1 to June 5, 2016. RTE's generation by unit data showed Provence-5 was indeed offline during this time with the exception of May 23 and May 25, when it was seen operating.
Provence-5 entered unplanned maintenance on June 1 and is due back to the grid on June 10, according to a note by Uniper.
The company gave no reasons for the prolonged industrial action at its Emile Huchet units. The strike comes however against the backdrop of a wave of industrial action organized by FNME, the industry's main labor union.
FNME previously said that Uniper has told workers at its 600-MW Provence-5 coal plant in France that it will become "economically impossible" to operate the plant when France sets a national carbon price floor.
The internal announcement by Uniper was made just two days after President Francois Hollande said France would set a carbon price floor by the beginning of next year.
On Tuesday, FNME called on energy workers to go on strike this Thursday and listed the looming Uniper power plant closures as one in the list of reasons for the strike.
"EDF announces 3,000 job cuts this year...The management of Uniper announces the closure of its sites in France, putting hundreds of jobs [at risk]," FNME said in a statement Tuesday.
Uniper's coal units at Emile Huchet and Provence are two of only five coal plants still operating in France after several power stations were retired at the end of last year.
From 2013-15, a total 4 GW of coal capacity was retired to comply with EU environmental regulations, according to RTE.
Of the 10 coal units available last year, only five were still online at the beginning of 2016, each of about 600 MW capacity, two of which belong to Uniper and three to EDF (Cordemais-4, Cordemais-5 and Havre-4).
