Finnish Nuclear Plant Back Online

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Finland's Fortum Oyj (HEL:FUM1V) (Espoo, Finland) has announced that both reactors at the Loviisa nuclear power plant have been brought back online following annual maintenance.

The two VVER-440 reactors, Loviisa 1 and 2, which are located on the island of Hästholmen, have been out of action for almost three weeks to carry out annual refuelling and maintenance. The reactors constitute half of Finland's nuclear fleet and have a combined capacity of just over 1,000-megawatts (MW). Loviisa is Finland's oldest nuclear power plant. The two units were commissioned in 1977 and 1980, respectively, and are licensed by the government to operate until 2027 and 2030. Nuclear power accounts for around 30% of the country's electricity demand.

Unit 1 was out of production for almost 19 days, until September 6, and maintenance work on Unit 2 was finished in 16 days, on September 23, Fortum said. Both units underwent a refuelling outage, with no major alterations or repairs carried out. About a quarter of the fuel was replaced on both units.

"In addition to normal periodical maintenance and refuelling at Loviisa 1, an engine of the emergency diesel generator was replaced with a renovated one, the 6-kilovolt (kV) main switch at the switch plant was renovated as were the 400-kV switches at the switch field," explained Pertti Salonen, Manager of Loviisa Power Plant's Maintenance Unit. "All work was completed within the planned maintenance schedule."

Timo Eurasto, Manager of Loviisa Power Plant's Operation Unit, added: "The annual outages on both units went very smoothly. Despite extra checks and reports, the annual outages were successful also in terms of keeping on schedule. "Both units are in good shape now, and we expect an undisrupted refuelling interval as in previous years". Fortum had hoped to extend the Loviisa plant by adding another reactor but this was rejected by the Finnish government in 2010. For additional information, see April 22, 2010, article - Finland Approves Two New Nuclear Plants.

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