Teollisuuden Voima Oy, which operates the Olkiluoto nuclear plant in Finland, is planning to restructure in an effort to improve its cost efficiency and competitiveness in today’s challenging electricity market conditions.
The company hopes to save around 15 million ($17.7m) per year through ‘efficiency-related structural changes,’ which will focus on centralising corporate support functions. The measures are expected to result in up to 110 job cuts.
A consultation process set to being this week (14 January) will involve almost all of TVO’s personnel. Operators of the Olkiluoto nuclear plant, safety engineers, as well as those representing the nuclear safety authority, Stuk, will be excluded from the negotiations, TVO said.
TVO blamed challenging market conditions, as well as the delays and cost overruns at the Olkiluoto 3 EPR, for the cuts.
"The competitiveness of the electricity produced in Olkiluoto has declined during the recent years and the outlook of the future is uncertain. Electricity market price has dropped and there are no signs of improvement in the foreseeable future, " said Jarmo Tanhua, president and CEO of TVO.
"In addition, costs related to nuclear power production have increased and the delay of Olkiluoto 3 project has caused remarkable additional costs. In order to improve the competitiveness of Olkiluoto electricity production we need to start these regrettable measures," Tanhua added.
TVO has over 800 employees. Between 2009 and 2013 the company recruited over 220 new staff, and the number of personnel has been steadily rising.
