Date of completion for Olkiluoto III nuclear plant still anybody’s guess

Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO), a Finnish electricity generating public company owning and operating two nuclear power plant units in Olkiluoto on the west coast of Finland, reported on Thursday of last week on yet another delay in the construction of the third nuclear facility in the Olkiluoto site.
      This latest announcement moves once again the completion date for the Olkiluoto III project to the unforeseen future.
     
At the moment no-one dares to start speculating when the OL3 might actually be finished, but it may well be that the construction site launched in 2004 gets to celebrate its tenth birthday before Finland’s fifth commercial nuclear reactor eventually goes on stream.
      Through the Thursday announcement TVO project manager Jouni Silvennoinen communicated that the completion of the OL3 “may be pushed back further than June 2012, which is the current deadline confirmed by the equipment manufacturer”.
      A new considerable uncertainty factor is automation. Its planning has been delayed, which may prove critical from the point of view of the overall timetable.
      On Friday Silvennoinen had little to add to the text in his Thursday announcement.
     
On the OL3 construction site, 4,100 workers labour away as one.
      In the meeting rooms of the executives, however, the sentiments are starting to falter. At this stage there is little desire on anyone’s part for making public statements.
      On the client side the automation issue is seen as a big problem, however.
      The French are believed to be working on an automation solution that would suit any power plant of this type.
      A huge scheduling problem may be connected to the introduction and testing of the facility, however. Some middle-aged nuclear industry veterans remember a host of surprise elements that caused delays even with the introduction of the OL1 and OL2.
     
And then there is the issue of money. The total cost estimate of the undertaking that was agreed on a fixed-price basis was EUR three billion, according to the 2003 exchange rate. Today that sum is way insufficient.
      Areva, which together with Siemens is responsible of building Finland’s fifth commercial nuclear reactor, has sharply criticised the customer.
      TVO, in turn, will in time demand hundreds of millions of euros in compensation for lost earnings through the postponements to production.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  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)
  Nuclear authority angered by shortcomings in reactor construction (3.11.2008)
  Olkiluoto III hasn´t quite gone according to plan (16.6.2009)
  New York Times highlights "cautionary tale" of Olkiluoto nuclear reactor project (29.5.2009)
  Olkiluoto III start-up delayed again - reactor could go on stream only in 2012 (17.10.2008)

See also:
  The Merry Wives of Olkiluoto (12.12.2006)
  Parliament approves fifth commercial nuclear reactor (24.5.2002)

Links:
  Olkiluoto III (TVO)
  Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant (Wikipedia)