As a first-of-a-kind venture, Olkiluoto Unit 3 took extra time to construct than was initially anticipated, however the finish end result has confirmed definitely worth the wait. Calling it the “largest single local weather motion” in Finland’s historical past is greater than only a advertising slogan, as it’s now offering dependable baseload electrical energy to serve about 14% of the nation’s demand. Henceforth, it might additionally brag that it’s a POWER Prime Plant award winner.
For folks apprehensive about local weather change, nuclear energy must be high of thoughts. Nuclear energy is a carbon-free vitality supply that’s well-proven, with reactors able to supplying baseload energy 24/7/365. Many nuclear energy crops routinely function at capability elements larger than 90%, which ranks on the high of all energy producing assets. For a world centered on slicing carbon emissions, nuclear energy is a logical selection.
Leaders in Finland worth clear vitality. Remarkably, right this moment greater than 90% of the nation’s electrical energy is produced from emission-free assets, with nuclear energy being the main contributor. And with the begin of normal manufacturing from Teollisuuden Voima Oyj’s (TVO’s) 1.6-GW Olkiluoto Unit 3 (OL3) in April this 12 months, the quantity of nuclear energy generated in Finland took a giant step up. Actually, now about 30% of the nation’s electrical energy comes from the three models situated on Olkiluoto Island. With two further models situated in Loviisa, nuclear energy accounts for near 40% of the whole combine.
Monetary Troubles and Arbitration
OL3’s story started within the early 2000s. Jouni Silvennoinen, venture director for OL3, defined, “Within the Finnish system, we want parliamentary approval for any nuclear development.” TVO obtained that approval in 2002. The corporate then initiated a turn-key fixed-price bidding course of, which concluded with contracts being award on the finish of 2003. Building formally started in 2005, with a consortium consisting of AREVA GmbH (Germany), AREVA NP SAS (France), and Siemens AG (Germany).
OL3 is predicated on EPR know-how. Initially, the EPR abbreviation stood for European Pressurised Water Reactor, however because the unit started to be marketed exterior of Europe, the design grew to become referred to as the Evolutionary Energy Reactor. In both case, EPR is the frequent initialism.
The EPR is a four-loop design derived from the German Konvoi varieties and from the French N4. Designers anticipated it to supply energy about 10% cheaper than the N4 and obtain about 92% availability over a 60-year service life. The EPR design has double containment with 4 separate redundant energetic security techniques, and boasts a core catcher below the strain vessel. The security techniques are bodily separated by way of 4 ancillary buildings on the identical concrete raft, and two of them are plane crash protected. The first diesel turbines reportedly have gas for 72 hours of operation, the secondary backups for twenty-four hours, and tertiary battery backup lasts 12 hours. The EPR is designed to face up to seismic floor acceleration of 600 Gal with out security impairment, based on the World Nuclear Affiliation.
Through the venture, AREVA bumped into monetary difficulties, in the end leading to its breakup into three completely different firms—Framatome, Orano, and an AREVA enterprise unit particularly centered on finishing the OL3 venture. In the meantime, Siemens additionally underwent a restructuring in the course of the venture, spinning off its Gasoline and Energy division right into a separate firm referred to as Siemens Power. In consequence, Siemens Power grew to become a part of the OL3 consortium. In the long run, the venture continued with related gamers AREVA (Germany), AREVA (France), and Siemens Power (Germany).
At the very least a few of AREVA’s monetary troubles stemmed from venture delays and price overruns on the OL3 venture. These points additionally led to contractual disputes and an arbitration case, which dragged on for roughly 10 years. In 2018, a settlement settlement was finalized, with TVO being paid €450 million and a belief being established with cash allotted below French regulation, making certain it might solely be used towards completion of the OL3 venture.
An Worldwide Workforce
On the peak of OL3 development in 2011, there have been about 4,500 employees onsite, and tons of extra working in engineering workplaces scattered primarily throughout Germany, France, and Finland. “The induction coaching was fairly a giant factor, as a result of we had folks from greater than 80 international locations onsite,” Silvennoinen mentioned.
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1. Olkiluoto Unit 3’s management room is crammed with digital know-how. Courtesy: TVO |
As beforehand famous, the consortium companions included French, German, and Finnish nationalities, however the official language for the venture and the most typical language onsite was English. “Unhealthy English,” Silvennoinen joked. Thus, all of the documentation, procedures, and principal management room operator interface shows (Determine 1) had been written in English.
“We put plenty of emphasis on communication. We would have liked to make sure that each employee might talk with their superior of their mom language. We even made an enormous language map to trace communications. If we have now a man doing reinforcement, for instance, who’s he reporting to? Do they communicate the identical language? After which sooner or later in time, it was transformed into English. However onsite some development employees—fairly many—didn’t communicate English,” he mentioned.
All employees additionally needed to be entered into the Finnish tax system. “That was fairly a giant train,” Silvennoinen famous. It was essential, nonetheless, to keep away from fostering a “grey financial system.” Making certain a protected working setting with such a different workforce was additionally essential, so security was a giant a part of induction coaching. “We set fairly stringent requirements, and, in fact, there have been mechanisms that if the security requirements had been violated, there have been penalties. Sadly, we needed to take away some folks from the location after they didn’t apply the right approach of working,” mentioned Silvennoinen. The method was extremely efficient, because the venture’s lost-time accident charge was lower than two per million working hours, based on Silvennoinen.
Overcoming Challenges
Design delays had been a giant burden initially of the venture. “In case you can’t plan your work a bit ahead, it turns into troublesome, for instance, to rearrange all of the cranes or set concrete, etcetera,” mentioned Silvennoinen. Because the venture progressed and designs had been finalized, planning grew to become simpler.
The Fukushima accident in 2011 pressured engineers to re-evaluate a number of design facets, however ultimately, the findings had minimal influence on development. “There was this fairly huge problem to overview the security foundation of every unit—so referred to as stress assessments. We had to try this as properly in the course of the development. However for the reason that EPR is among the first reactor varieties designed from the very starting to deal with extreme accidents, the adjustments launched due to Fukushima had been very restricted. I’d say 95% of the issues recognized had been already addressed within the EPR design,” Silvennoinen mentioned.
As anybody aware of geography would possibly suppose, Finland has very chilly winters. (Exterior of Reykjavík, Iceland, Helsinki is the northernmost capital on the earth.) Pouring concrete in –15C (5F) temperatures, for instance, and acquiring high-quality outcomes could be a problem. To beat this, the venture workforce collaborated with the sub-supplier and used temperature sensors to judge how the concrete was curing. This allowed actions to be taken to keep up parameters inside strict tips, thereby attaining desired outcomes.
Attaining Prime Efficiency
Plant simulators have confirmed to be useful to each operators and engineering personnel. “We’ve got three plant simulators. One is for coaching functions, one is for testing new options earlier than they’re launched into the plant, and one is for every kind of engineering actions,” defined Silvennoinen. “That has turned out to be a good suggestion too. As a result of it is a first-of-a-kind plant, and if it doesn’t work on the simulator, it in all probability doesn’t work in actual life both.”
Digital working manuals are additionally a considerably distinctive function adopted at OL3. The advantage of that is that operators are all the time assured of getting the right model on their screens. OL3 additionally benefitted from having OL1 and OL2 working expertise. “We might take various procedures and issues like that over to OL3,” Silvennoinen mentioned.
“The unit efficiency since commissioning has been fairly good. The plant has carried out properly—no shutdowns,” mentioned Silvennoinen. “We began prepping for the ultimate commissioning steps in March—working now greater than six months with none interruptions and the supply or the capability issue is near 100%. The one restrictions we have now had had been as a result of grid restrictions. It’s a huge unit on the Finnish grid—by far the most important—and in some circumstances, we have now had grid restrictions, for instance, when we have now plenty of wind energy or consumption is much less.”
After the prolonged development interval, OL3 couldn’t have come on-line at a significantly better time. The Russian invasion of Ukraine triggered an overhaul of European vitality flows and markets. The 1,600 MW of urgently wanted carbon-free vitality from OL3 was a welcome addition to the Finnish grid. Whereas a lot of Europe confronted an vitality disaster, Finland had the second-cheapest market worth for electrical energy in 2022, trailing solely Sweden.
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And the residents of Finland have taken discover. When the choice to assemble a 3rd reactor at Olkiluoto was made within the early 2000s, attitudes in Finland towards nuclear energy had been a lot much less favorable than they’re right this moment. Ville Kulmala, communications specialist with TVO, offered a chart displaying Finns attitudes towards nuclear energy in 2003 had been break up virtually evenly, with about 35% constructive, about 32% unfavorable, and the rest being presumably impartial. In a survey launched on April 20 this 12 months, attitudes had been a lot completely different—68% constructive and solely 6% unfavorable. Kulmala mentioned the primary issue behind the recognition of nuclear energy was local weather causes, however the constructive publicity surrounding OL3’s startup actually didn’t damage.
Silvennoinen mentioned he felt satisfaction within the OL3 venture on a number of ranges. “I perceive that it is a huge, huge factor in combating local weather change. We’re bringing plenty of new carbon-free—CO 2 -free—electrical energy into the market. In fact, from the corporate stage, we will say that, sure, we really did it. There’s plenty of speak, however we really did it. On a private stage, this journey—working along with an excellent workforce from our firm along with the highest nuclear consultants from all around the world—it has been very fascinating. We’ve got had some hiccups alongside the way in which, however now, we take a look at the outcomes—the plant is extraordinarily positive and good, and it’s working easily.” The POWER editors agree and sincerely congratulate the complete venture workforce on OL3’s choice as a POWER Prime Plant.
—Aaron Larson is POWER’s govt editor.
