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Milestones Announced As Finland’s Olkiluoto-3 EPR Heads Towards Completion

By David Dalton
19 October 2016

Milestones Announced As Finland’s Olkiluoto-3 EPR Heads Towards Completion
The Olkiluoto-3 nuclear plant under construction in Finland.

19 Oct (NucNet): Full scope simulator testing has been completed and nuclear circuit cleaning has begun at the Olkiluoto-3 EPR unit under construction in Finland, Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) said.

The two milestones are important steps towards completion of the plant, said Jouni Silvennoinen, TVO’s senior vice-president responsible for the project.

Full scope simulator testing uses an in-situ replica of the plant’s main control room. Nuclear circuit cleaning involves flushing all the plant auxiliary pipes towards the primary circuit and the reactor vessel with demineralised water.

This will ensure the cleanliness of the reactor primary circuit and all the main connected auxiliary systems and is one of the prerequisites for the start of cold functional tests planned for early summer 2017, TVO said.

In parallel, finalisation of the main electromechanical installations and plant finishing work are under way.

An Areva-Siemens consortium is building the 1,600-MW EPR for TVO. When the power station becomes operational in 2018, it will be nine years behind schedule. Commercial operation was originally scheduled for April 2009.

Both Areva-Siemens and TVO have lodged substantial claims for the delays at an International Chamber of Commerce arbitration proceeding.

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