Finland's Olkiluoto 3 Nuclear Project Delayed

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - Finland's latest nuclear power plant (NPP), Olkiluoto 3, has run into more significant delays with its start-up date now being pushed back to 2016.

Project owner, Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO), has revealed that it "is preparing for the possibility" that the start of regular electricity production at the new Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) unit may be postponed until 2016 - seven years later than originally planned. Last summer, TVO pushed the commissioning date back to 2014. For additional information, see related news item from July 24, 2012 - Delays Strike Finnish Nuclear Project.

TVO claimed that the suppliers of the plant - reactor designer Areva S.A. (EPA:CEI) (Paris, France) and Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany) - have failed to update the overall schedule and provide a new confirmation for the completion date.

"We have not yet received an adequate schedule update," stated Jouni Silvennoinen, head of the OL3 Project for TVO. "Additionally, the Instrumentation and Control (I&C) design has not proceeded as planned, and therefore the plant completion may be further delayed. Nevertheless, we continue to cooperate with the supplier with regard to the schedule assessment."

The project, which was to showcase the world's first European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), designed by Areva, has been an embarrassing and hugely expensive disaster. OL3 will be Finland's fifth nuclear reactor, with a capacity of 1,600-megawatt (MW). It was started back in 2005 and was supposed to have been finished and operating by the middle of 2009. Areva has had to foot a bill estimated to be billions of euro for the delays.

Areva has hit back at TVO's claims, countering that it has not received the cooperation it needs to accelerate the project, with particular reference to the I&C system.

"The Areva-Siemens consortium and TVO jointly identified a while ago the Instrumentation and Control (I&C) as a critical field for the positive progress of the project," it stated. "Over the course of the past year, the consortium has asked for significantly more active cooperation from TVO in order to obtain the final approval of the detailed I&C architecture. The Areva-Siemens consortium regrets that TVO continues to not fulfil its obligations to allow for the project to advance properly. Areva emphasizes that the EPR™ I&C offers major safety advancements and has already been approved by the French and British nuclear safety authorities."

Areva's other European EPR project is also mired in delays and cost overruns. The Flamanville 3 plant project in northern France is a 1,650 MW project that is four years overdue and has cost double its original €3.3 billion ($4.7 billion) budget. For additional information, see related news item from July 25, 2011 - French Nuclear Project Delayed Until 2016.

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