Commissioning was initially scheduled for 2010. The production of electricity from the EPR nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto-3, built by the Areva-Siemens consortium, has been postponed again and will start in March, instead of the end of February, announced Finnish electrician TVO on Saturday.
This new postponement “is made necessary by modifications which must be made to the automation of the production unit, in particular to the control functions linked to the turbine island”, he specified. Adding that “changes and testing are taking longer than expected and we need to update the schedule accordingly.”
Electricity production had already been postponed to the end of February, instead of January as previously announced, ie twelve years after the date of commissioning initially planned. Normal commissioning is expected in July 2022.
At the end of this project launched in 2005 in the south-west of Finland, which has become a way of the cross for Areva undermined by delays and financial excesses, the Finnish EPR will become the most powerful reactor in operation in Europe.
With a production capacity of 1,650 megawatts, it should supply around 15% of the Nordic country’s consumption. Before Olkiluoto-3, only two EPR reactors entered operation in the world, those of the Taishan power plant in China.
