Finnish energy company Fennovoima has terminated, effective immediately, its engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with RAOS Project Oy, a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom, for the delivery of a 1,200-MWe VVER-1200 pressurized water reactor at the Hanhikivi site in Finland’s Pyhäjoki municipality.
Finnish utility Fortum Power and Heat Oy has submitted an application to Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment to operate the two reactors at the Loviisa nuclear power plant through 2050. The current operating licenses for Loviisa-1 and -2 expire in 2027 and 2030, respectively.
Europe’s first EPR, Unit 3 at Finland’s Olkiluoto nuclear power plant, was connected to the nation’s grid on March 12, Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO), the facility’s owner and operator, has announced.
Olkiluoto-3 is also the first new Finnish reactor in four decades, and one of only three new reactors in Europe in the past 15 years. (Romania’s Cernavoda-2 began supplying electricity to the grid in August 2007, and Belarus’s Belarusian-1 in November 2020.)
The long-delayed Unit 3 at Finland’s Olkiluoto nuclear power plant has achieved initial criticality, plant owner and operator Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) announced this morning. The reactor, a 1600-MWe Generation III+ EPR supplied by Framatome, started up at 3:22 a.m. local time.
Macron
In a televised address Tuesday evening, French president Emmanuel Macron announced his government’s intention to build new large nuclear reactors in France to address growing energy and environmental challenges.
“If we want to pay for our energy at reasonable rates and not depend on foreign countries, we must both continue to save energy and invest in the production of carbon-free energy on our soil,” said Macron. “This is why, to guarantee France’s energy independence, to guarantee our country’s electricity supply, and to reach our goals—notably carbon neutrality in 2050—we will for the first time in decades revive the construction of nuclear reactors in our country and continue to develop renewable energy. These investments will allow us to live up to our commitments. As we close COP26 in Glasgow, this is a strong message from France.”
A new video, Finland Might Have Solved Nuclear Power’s Biggest Problem, debuted on YouTube this morning and has been seen already by a large number of viewers. The video takes a look at Finland’s efforts to lessen its reliance on foreign energy and meet its goal of carbon neutrality by 2035 with nuclear power, as well as to provide a solution to the problem of spent nuclear fuel.
Finnish energy company Fortum Power and Heat Oy has initiated an environmental impact assessment procedure for the two reactors at its Loviisa nuclear power plant with the aim of operating the units for 20 years beyond their current license expiration dates of 2027 (for Unit 1) and 2030 (for Unit 2).
Hanul (formerly Ulchin) Nuclear Station at night. (Courtesy KEPCO E&C)
Over the past four years, the South Korean nuclear power program has suffered a set of very public setbacks that cast doubt on the entire program's integrity, to the point where even the South Korean president's attention was directed at the enterprise, in addition to public support being damaged. A recent well-publicized realignment in energy policy has seen a reduction in the expected percentage that nuclear energy would contribute to South Korea's fuel mix, and in some quarters it was augured that the program had been crippled.