Finland’s Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) said on 30 July that it had received information from the plant supplier Areva-Siemens that regular electricity production by the EPR under construction at unit 3 of the Olkiluoto NPP (OL3) will be postponed for a month due to extra turbine overhaul and inspection works.

The hot functional test phase is underway at OL3, a 1,600MWe Generation III EPR, in preparation for first criticality and the start of electricity production. The hot functional tests have proceeded well but after receiving the test results it has been decided to conduct some additional overhaul and inspection work for the turbine. The start of electricity production will be postponed to November 2021 and the regular electricity production to March 2022.

The project to build OL3, which began in 2005, is some 10 years behind schedule and significantly over budget. The cost of Olkiluoto-3 was initially put at €3.2bn, but in 2012 Areva estimated the overall cost at to €8.5bn.

Image: Olkiluoto 3 EPR project (Credit: TVO)