Finland Starts Producing Electricity From Delayed Nuke Power Plant

Finland's much-delayed Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor started test production on Saturday, Mar. 12, 2022, operator TVO said, delivering power to the national grid which over time is expected to reduce the need for electricity imports and lead to lower prices, Ehsi Lehto and Nora Buli reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: Plagued by technological problems that became the subject of lawsuits, the 1.6 gigawatt (GW) Olkiluoto 3 reactor had originally been due to open in 2009.

Plagued by technological problems that became the subject of lawsuits, the 1.6 gigawatt (GW) reactor had originally been due to open in 2009. It is Finland's first new nuclear plant in over four decades and Europe's first in almost 15 years.

Olkiluoto 3 has started test production of 0.1 gigawatt, a small fraction of its capacity, but a ramp-up to full, regular electricity output is set by the end of July.

"OL3 significantly improves Finland's electricity self-sufficiency and helps in achieving carbon neutrality goals," operator Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) said in a statement. Once fully operational, it is expected to meet 14% of Finland's electricity demand, reducing the need for imports from Russia, Sweden, and Norway.

"Olkiluoto 3 will decrease Finland's import dependency and it will become a cheaper price zone," Aurora Energy Research economist Alexander Esser told Reuters. Finland's net imports of power averaged 13 terawatt-hours (TWh) over the last few years, which should drop to 5-8 TWh by 2025 with Olkiluoto 3 in operation, Esser said.

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