The 1600MW Olkiluoto 3 EPR under construction in Finland is now expected to begin commercial operation in July 2020, six months later than previously anticipated.
Finnish power company Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) said 17 July it had received an updated schedule for commissioning Olikiluoto 3 from the plant supplier, the Areva-Siemens Consortium.
According to the supplier, fuel will be loaded into Olkiluoto 3 in January 2020, and its first connection to the grid will take place in April 2020, TVO said.
The reactor is exepcted to produce 1-3TWh of electricity at varying power levels during the commissioning phase.
The new timetable is "not only a schedule updating exercise, but it consisted of methodology to change the ways of working," noted Jouni Silvennoinen, TVO's director of the Olkiluoto 3 project.
The new schedule has been expected since April when TVO noted that modification outage work was "not progressing as expected".
Construction of Olkiluoto 3 began in 2005 under a turnkey contract signed with TVO in late 2003, with completion initially scheduled for 2009.
The previous schedule issued in November 2018 indicated fuel loading would begin in June, with grid connection in October, and the start of regular electricity production in January 2020.
Photo: Olkiluoto 3 (credit: TVO)
