Plant Operation

Olkiluoto / Electricity Production At Finland Nuclear Station Down Slightly On 2019

By David Dalton
4 January 2021

Electricity Production At Finland Nuclear Station Down Slightly On 2019
The Olkiluoto nuclear power station in Finland. Courtesy TVO.
The Olkiluoto nuclear power station in southwest Finland produced 14.6 TWh of electricity in 2020, meeting about one-sixth of the country’ total electricity consumption but representing a slight fall from the 14.75 TWh produced in 2019.

Operator Teollisuuden Voima Oyj said Olkiluoto-1 produced 7.31 TWh of electricity with a load factor of 93.7% and Olkiluoto-2 produced 7.28 TWh with a load factor of 93.3%. The combined load factor of both units was 93.5%.

TVO said production at Unit 2 was affected by an incident in December caused by a fault in the purification system for the reactor’s cooling water. The incident led to the plant being taken offline, although it has since been restarted.

Non-scheduled maintenance work was carried out during the year at both units and this is also reflected in the electricity production volumes, TVO said.

In 2019 the two units produced 14.75 TWh of electricity with Olkiluoto-1 setting a production record of 7.54 TWh. The combined load factor of the two units was 94.8%, which was the second highest.

Olkiluoto-1 is an 880-MW boiling water reactor unit that began commercial operation in October 1979. Olkiluoto-2, an 890-MW BWR, began commercial operation in July 1982.

Finland has four commercial nuclear power plants which, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, produced about 34% of the country’s electricity in 2019. The other two units are at Loviisa in the south of the country.

Construction of a third unit, an EPR, began at Olkiluoto in 2005. Fuel loading is scheduled for March and regular electricity production will begin in February 2022. The schedule means construction of the 1,600-MW Generation III plant, which began in August 2005, is about 10 years behind schedule.

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