Construction work on Olkiluoto III nuclear reactor to experience further major delays

Finland’s fifth nuclear reactor preparing for installation of the reactor and turbine machinery

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The construction of Finland’s fifth commercial nuclear reactor, which is being built in Olkiluoto on the west coast of Finland, has been delayed once again. Even so, the French installation company Areva stands its ground, maintaining that the new reactor will generate electricity from the summer of 2012.
     
”It does not look likely. The construction and the starting of installation on the reactor have progressed somewhat slower than scheduled”, says Jouni Silvennoinen, a project manager at the Finnish nuclear power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO).
      ”It will be difficult to meet the deadline of June 2012, but the plant should be more or less completed by the end of 2012”, Silvennoinen continues.
      Silvennoinen is not willing to evaluate when the new reactor could start generating electricity.
      ”It is not even very proper, as this is a turnkey project and it is the plant supplier who is engineering the construction”, Silvennoinen adds.
      The plant supplier for Finland’s fifth commercial nuclear reactor in Olkiluoto is a consortium formed by Areva and Siemens.
     
A number of experts in various fields have estimated that the completion of the nuclear reactor project in 2012 will be "challenging" as the term goes - to say the very least.
      For example, Lauri Myllyvirta of the environmental organisation Greenpeace says that his optimistic estimate for the completion of the project is 2014 unless further delays occur.
      Myllyvirta points out that the operation of the reactor will not begin immediately after the completion of the power plant.
      It will take another year before the reactor has been connected to the electric grid and the generation of electrical power can start, he says.
     
In the reactor building the actual construction is gradually coming to an end, and the next phase is to start extensive installations. Later on, components will be brought in through a hole in the wall of the reactor building.
      ”It looks likely that the installation of primary components will start in June. The installation is to start from the reactor and the pressure vessel, after which come the steam generators”, Silvennoinen reports.
      ”There are hundreds and thousands of components, hundreds of kilometres of cables, as well as pipelines. That will certainly take time”, Silvennoinen adds.
      As soon as the primary pipes have passed the final inspection in France, and have been delivered to the construction site in Finland, where they are to be welded to the system, the turbine plant will be completed.
     
”The welding work on the building site will require more monitoring from us. Traditionally, attention has to be paid to all new phases in the construction”, says Director Petri Tiippana from the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK).
      ”Even earlier, problems have arisen from certain phases of the construction. Now we are facing the start-up of the welding work on pipes. Last autumn, STUK stopped the work when the authority found problems with the process”, Tiippana continues.
     
STUK is especially interested in the automation systems and their operation in crisis situations.
      ”If the normal automation system does not work properly for some reason, it must not affect the operation of the so-called accident automation system. We have wanted to examine carefully all potential connections between these systems in order to guarantee that they are independent of each other”, Tiippana adds.
      When the new nuclear reactor has been completed, it does not mean that its commercial use could start immediately.
     
Before going onstream, the third reactor at the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant is facing a long preliminary phase, including the commissioning of the plant and the application and hearing procedures of an operating licence.
      During this phase, it will be assessed whether the nuclear power plant will meet the requirements, and whether the power company will be able to use the plant safely.
      The final decision on the permit will be made by the government.
     
The project began back in 2002, when a slim Parliamentary majority voted in favour of granting a licence to TVO for a fifth Finnish nuclear reactor.
     
Construction began in 2005, and Areva promised the plant would be ready for trial operation by May 2009, but the venture has been dogged by delays throughout, and a number of law suits are pending on both sides.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Olkiluoto III hasn´t quite gone according to plan (16.6.2009)
  Costs of delay in construction of Olkiluoto III approaching price of new reactor (29.1.2009)
  TVO seeks EUR 2.4 billion in damages for Olkiluoto nuclear reactor delays (28.1.2009)
  Olkiluoto III start-up delayed again - reactor could go on stream only in 2012 (17.10.2008)
  Nuclear authority angered by shortcomings in reactor construction (3.11.2008)
  Further delay in construction of Olkiluoto-3 nuclear reactor (5.12.2006)

Links:
  Olkiluoto III (TVO)
  Nuclear Power in Finland (Wikipedia)

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