It is now certain. Finland, which counted a few weeks ago on its new Olkiluoto 3 EPR to get through the current winter, can give up on its new generation nuclear reactor for (almost) the entire winter. The normal commissioning of the latter has been postponed until the beginning of March (the 8th exactly), TVO, the Finnish operator of the plant, announced on Wednesday. Ten days ago, the latter was counting on February following the appearance in October of damage detected in the water pumps of the reactor. Today, the damage review is largely complete.
“The water supply pumps were operated outside normal operating ranges during production testing, which resulted in higher than normal stress on the pumps,” he explained.
Stopping Russian electricity deliveries
The blow is all the harsher for Finland as the Scandinavian country was counting on its new EPR, the most powerful in Europe with a capacity of 1,600 megawatts, to compensate for the cessation of Russian electricity deliveries decided by Moscow following the announcement of Finland’s candidacy for NATO in May. These accounted for around 900 MW, or 10% of Finnish consumption. To make up for this lack, the Finnish State has already had to operate reserve oil-fired power stations last month. Sweden can also provide it with up to 2,400 megawatts, but hardly more because it is itself faced with the risk of shortages and regularly relies on reserve oil-fired power stations.
This new incident comes as the reactor had reached its full capacity on September 30 for the first time since the announcement of its construction in 2003. At that time, it alone produced approximately 20% of the electricity consumed in Finland (40% by adding the two existing Olkiluoto 1 and 2 reactors).
Almost 13 years of setbacks
This new problem adds to the long list of disappointments encountered by this reactor built by the Franco-German consortium Areva-Siemens. This had started last March 12 years late and a long series of failures and setbacks which partly explained the heavy restructuring of Areva. As early as 2006, three years following the announcement of the start of construction, delays in the construction of the main cooling pipe had already postponed the start-up of the reactor to 2010-2011. The Finnish nuclear safety agency STUK then requested in 2009 several hundred improvements due to “problems related to construction”, opening a conflict between the operator of the future reactor, the Finnish TVO, and Areva-Siemens, with also criticism of the Finnish policeman. After several years of litigation and additional delays, Areva finally settled its dispute with TVO in November 2018, paying compensation of 450 million euros.
Despite this fiasco, support for civilian nuclear power has grown in recent years in Finland, spurred by climate concerns and global energy tensions. According to a poll published in May, 60% of Finns are now in favor of it, a record. Since the cancellation in May of the Hanhikivi 1 nuclear project of the Finnish Fennovoima and the Russian Rosatom, no new nuclear reactor project has however been launched outside of OL3.
New delay for the Flamanville EPR
Launched in 1992 as the ultimate in French nuclear technology, the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) was designed to revive nuclear energy in Europe, in the followingmath of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. The new model was presented as offering both higher power and better safety, but its construction proves to be a headache, and not only in Finland. In France, the construction of the Flamanville EPR, which began in 2007, was also affected by massive delays, due in particular to anomalies in the steel cover and the reactor vessel. While commissioning was scheduled for the end of 2023, EDF announced last week a further delay of six months. The new delay is due to the necessary revision of treatment procedures for some 150 “complex” welds within the reactor’s main secondary circuit.
The EPR has also been selected for a two-reactor power plant at Hinkley Point, in the south-west of England, where the site has suffered from the coronavirus pandemic. Electricity production is currently planned for mid-2027, instead of 2025 initially. In China, two EPRs were launched at the Taishan power plant in the south-east of the country in 2019. One of the reactors, shut down for a year for a sealing problem, resumed production in August.
