The Olkiluoto reactor is the third EPR to enter service in the world, after those made in China, in Taishan.
This time it’s the right one. The Finnish nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto has been operating at full power since Friday, according to the energy company TVO and the French group Areva. Since its first connection to the electricity network, last March, it had slowly increased in power.
With 1600 megawatts of power, it is quite simply the reactor with the highest capacity in Europe, and the third in the world. And it uses EPR technology, that of the plants under construction at Flamanville, in France, or at Hinkley Point, in the United Kingdom.
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The Olkiluoto plant, which has two other older reactors, will now supply no less than 40% of Finland’s electricity production. The EPR alone will produce about 19% and the two existing reactors will together provide 21% of this production.
It was in 2003 that the contract between the Finnish TVO and the Franco-German consortium formed by Areva and Siemens was signed. The commissioning was originally scheduled for 2010. But a long series of problems will have continued to delay this launch, for a final delay of twelve years. Above all, these setbacks cost Areva a lot of money and partly explained the heavy restructuring of the French company.
The Finnish Olkiluoto reactor is the third EPR to enter service in the world, after those manufactured in China, in Taishan. In France, the commissioning of the Flamanville plant is expected in mid-2023. That is eleven years behind the date initially planned for the launch of the project.
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