Finnish power company Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) and the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) have signed a €75m ($85m) loan agreement to finance upgrading of units 1&2 at the Olkiluoto NPP. External funding to the investment project will amount to about €150m, TVO said.
The investment project to be implemented in the coming years will include replacement of the I&C and monitoring systems and the reactor steam separators. “These investments are designed to further improve the safety and availability of our plant units,” said Mikko Lampinen, the Senior Vice President for Engineering at TVO. “The possible extension of the service life of the plant units as well as an increase of their thermal power have also been accounted for in the investment plans.”
Olkiluoto NPP comprises two 890 MWe boiling water reactors (BWRs) and one 1,600 MWe EPR reactor. Unit 1 began commercial operations in 1979 and unit 2 in 1982. The main contractor was ASEA-Atom, now a part of Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB. Turbine generators were supplied by Stal-Laval. The reactor pressure vessels were constructed by Uddcomb Sweden AB, and reactor internal parts, mechanical components by Finnatom. The electrical equipment was supplied by Strömberg.
The original power of the reactors was 660 MWe. They have undergone several upgrades, the most recent being in 2017 and 2018. A licence extension was granted in September 2018 allowing the reactors to operate until 2038. In 2023, TVO announced it is considering seeking another licence extension of at least 10 years and a power uprate of 80 MWe to 970 MWe. The Environmental Impact Assessment EIA programme, published in January 2024, considers a life extension of 10 or 20 years at the current power or uprating to 970 MWe in addition to the life extension.
TVO said the EIA Report for the project was submitted to the Ministry of Economic Affairs & Employment of Finland in December 2024 and the EIA reporting stage was completed in April with the Ministry issuing its Reasoned Conclusion, which says the EIA Report meets the requirements.
