Fuel loading at Finland's Olkiluoto 3 EPR will be delayed by about two months until the end of August, Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) has announced.
Fuel loading had been planned for June 2019, with first grid connection in October 2019 and regular electricity production scheduled for January 2020.
However, TVO said 10 April that modification outage working during the first quarter of 2019 had not been progressing according to the schedule issued by the plant supplier Areva-Siemens Consortium in November 2018.
"Based on the information provided by the plant supplier the fuel will not be loaded to the reactor before the end of August," TVO said.
Construction of the 1600MW Olkiluoto 3 EPR started in 2005. The project was initially planned for completion in 2009, but has suffered various delays and is currently running about three times over its original EUR3.2 billion budget.
Jouni Silvennoinen, director of the OL3 project said: "Although this new schedule review informed by the plant supplier is disappointing of course, it is crucial that the commissioning tests will be performed with utmost care."
"We will have a modern and safe plant, and the final phases of the commissioning will be done in cooperation with the plant supplier," he added.
Olkiluoto 3 is Finland's fifth reactor, and is expected to meet about 15% of the country's total electricity demand when fully operational.
