Operational Licence Sought for Finland's Olkiluoto 3 Nuclear Power Plant

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) (Eurajoki) has applied for an operating licence for the country's largest nuclear power project, Olkiluoto 3 (OL3).

The company said that the application is an important step towards commissioning the troubled project, located at the site of the existing Olkiluoto nuclear power plant which has two operating units that supply 17% of the country's electricity. With a generating capacity of 1,600 megawatts (MW) OL3 will be able to supply 15% of the country's power. TVO expects to obtain the operating licence towards the end of 2017, after which commissioning will commence. The plant is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2018.

The new plant was meant to be a showcase for the world's first European Pressurized Reactor (EPR). The 2018 start-up date is nine years later than originally planned and has cost billions of euro in overruns. The reactor was designed by Areva S.A. (EPA:CEI) (Paris, France) and the company has had to foot the bill for most of the cost escalations. For additional information, see September 5, 2014, article - Finland's New Nuclear Project Delayed.

"This is an important milestone towards commissioning of OL3, said Jouni Silvennoinen, Senior Vice President, responsible for the OL3 Project. "Now the project is moving from installation to testing. The operating licence application process is the most important phase of the final acceptance of a nuclear power project before start up of the new power plant unit."

The application material has taken years to produce and the largest section, which relates to safety analysis documentation, amounts to about 130,000 pages.

Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) said that the assessment will take approximately 18 months.

"TVO has already submitted most of the operating licence materials to STUK," explained Tapani Virolainen, deputy director of STUK's Nuclear Reactor Regulation Department. "STUK has granted a six-month extension only for the provision of certain analysis results. STUK will assess whether the requirements for the safe use of the plant are fulfilled. We have already inspected and approved the design of the plant during the construction phase, the focus in the operating licence phase is on the verification of updated safety analyses and the organisation's preparation for operation. TVO has prepared safety analyses of various accident cases. STUK verifies whether these analyses are correct by acquiring independent comparison analyses."

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