Areva and Toshiba on Shortlist for Construction of Finnish Nuclear Plant

Researched by Industrial Info Resources Europe (Galway, Ireland)--Finnish nuclear consortium Fennovoima Oy (Helsinki, Finland) has invited Areva S.A. (EPA:CEI) (Paris, France) and Toshiba Corporation (TYO:6502) (Tokyo, Japan) to bid for the construction of a grassroot nuclear power plant. The request sent to both firms is for the delivery and construction of reactor and turbine islands, and does not include site preparation works or civil buildings. The plant supplier and the model of delivery will be decided in 2012-2013.

The plant is expected to be brought online around 2020 and is estimated to cost €4 billion to €6 billion ($5.8 billion to $8.7 billion). A spokesman for Fennovoima said the plant would have a capacity, depending on the final supplier and model chosen, of between 1,600 and 1,700 megawatts (MW). The final site has not yet been selected from the two alternative greenfield sites of Pyhajoki or Simo, both in northern Finland. The final site selection will be made after the country's supreme administrative court has ruled on appeals over the regional land use plans of the sites. If approved, preparatory site work will begin at the end of 2012.

Fennovoima chose Areva and Toshiba as plant supplier alternatives in 2008, and since then, technical development work has been done with both companies, as well as with alternative turbine suppliers Alstom S.A. (EPA:ALO) (Levallois-Perret, France) and Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany). Fennovoima signed technical development agreements with both vendors in December 2010 to ensure that Areva's EPR and Toshiba's ABWR reactor designs would meet Finnish safety requirements and the company's own technical requirements.

Finland currently has four reactors producing almost one-third of Finland's total energy demand. A fifth reactor--Olkiluoto 3, currently being built by Areva and Siemens AG for Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) (Helsinki, Finland)--is estimated to begin operating by the end of 2013. Last summer, Finland's Parliament made a decision-in-principle to allow the building of a sixth and a seventh nuclear reactor in Finland. TVO was granted a decision-in-principle to build a fourth plant at the Olkiluoto site, and Fennovoima was granted a decision-in-principle to build at either Pyhajoki or Simo. Both reactors are expected to be operational by 2020. For more information, see July 6, 2020, article - Final Approval Granted for Two Nuclear Plants in Finland.

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