Fennovoima Ltd ( fi, Fennovoima Oy) is a nuclear power company established by Russian state's nuclear company

Rosatom Rosatom, ( rus, Росатом, p=rɐsˈatəm}) also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that speciali ...

and a consortium of Finnish

state-owned State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownersh ...

power and industrial companies. The company does not own any nuclear capacities; however, it is preparing to build the 1200 MW Hanhikivi 1 nuclear power plant at

Pyhäjoki Pyhäjoki (; literally the " Holy River") is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the defunct province of Oulu, which was split in two regions; Pyhäjoki is part of the Northern Ostrobothnia region. It is located southwest of the city of O ...

Fennovoima Board

The Chairman of Fennovoima's Board is Juhani Pitkäkoski, Senior Vice President of M&A of

Caverion Caverion is a Finnish listed company that designs, implements, and maintains building technology and industrial services. Its offering covers the entire life cycle of buildings, infrastructure, or industrial sites and processes: from design and b ...

Corporation while the Vice Chairman is Anastasia Zoteeva, Deputy Director General for Business Development of Rusatom Energy International. Other board members are Esa Lager, former CFO of

Outokumpu Outokumpu Oyj is a group of international companies headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, employing 10,600 employees in more than 30 countries. Outokumpu is the largest producer of stainless steel in Europe and the second largest producer in the A ...

Plc; Juha Mäkitalo, Attorney-at-Law; Stefan Storholm, CEO of Katternö Group; Seppo Siljama, and CEO of Rusatom Energy International Nikita Konstantinov. Deputy Members of the Board are Ilkka Salonen, CEO of Garmoshka Ltd, Djurica Tankosic, President of Global Nuclear of Worley Parsons; Jussi Lehto, CEO of Keravan and Pekka Erkkilä, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Outokumpu.

Shareholders

Finnish industry, trade and the energy companies in need of their own electricity production started the company in 2007. Originally Fennovoima was created as a partnership between Voimaosakeyhtiö SF, a cooperative producing electricity for its owners' needs at production cost in proportion to their ownership share (Mankala), with 66% and the German power company E.ON with 34%. After E.ON's withdrawal from Finland, Voimaosakeyhtiö SF briefly owned 100% of Fennovoima shares. According to the agreement with

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, RAOS Voima Oy, a Finnish subsidiary of Rosatom, acquired a 34% stake which previously belonged to E.ON. Although RAOS Voima was prepared to take 49% in the project, Voimaosakeyhtiö SF commits to own more than half of the power plant and aims to increase the share of Finnish companies up to 66%. As of 2014, Voimaosakeyhtiö SF has 44 shareholders. In 2016 Fennovoima is owned by Finnish Voimaosakeyhtiö SF (66%) and Rosatom's subsidiary RAOS Voima Oy (34%). Voimaosakeyhtiö SF includes industrial and trading companies (mostly state-owned or state-controlled through

Fortum Fortum Oyj is a Finnish state-owned energy company located in Espoo, Finland. In addition to Finland, it focuses on Germany and other countries in Central Europe, Great Britain, Russia and the Nordic region. Fortum operates power plants, inc ...

and

Solidium Solidium Oy is a Finnish state-owned investment company. Founded in 1991, Solidium's original purpose was to manage the property of SKOP Bank (''Säästöpankkien Keskus-Osake-Pankki''; fi), which went bankrupt in the early 1990s recession. In 20 ...

) as well as local energy utilities (which are mainly owned by municipalities).

Power plant project

On 21 April 2010, the Government of Finland decided to grant a permit (Decision-in-Principle) to Fennovoima for construction of a nuclear reactor. The decision was approved by the Parliament on 1 July 2010. The estimated construction time is six years until 2024. The chosen plant model is

's pressurized water reactor

AES-2006 The water-water energetic reactor (WWER), or VVER (from russian: водо-водяной энергетический реактор; transliterates as ; ''water-water power reactor'') is a series of pressurized water reactor designs originally de ...

which is the latest evolution of

VVER The water-water energetic reactor (WWER), or VVER (from russian: водо-водяной энергетический реактор; transliterates as ; ''water-water power reactor'') is a series of pressurized water reactor designs originally de ...

plant designs. The other bidders for the project were

Areva Areva S.A. is a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through the French Alternative Energies and Atom ...

and

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...

. Fennovoima began direct negotiations with Rosatom in April 2013. On 21 December 2013, Fennovoima and Rosatom Overseas, a subsidiary of Rosatom, signed a plant supply contract. The plant should be commissioned by 2024. On 28 February 2014 Voimaosakeyhtiö SF made the final decision to participate in Fennovoima's nuclear power plant construction. The final investment decision was to be made in 2014. Fennovoima submitted an application at the end of June 2015 including the stakeholder with a 35 percent share of the Russian firm

and a percent share of

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

n power company Migrit Energija. In August 2015 the public was informed that Migrit Solarna Energija would not be involved in the venture after it was reviewed to be owned by Sberbank Russia. On 5 August 2015 Finnish Prime Minister

Juha Sipilä Juha Petri Sipilä (; born 25 April 1961) is a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland from 2015 to 2019. A relative newcomer to politics, he has a successful background in business. He was the leader of the Centre Party fro ...

said that the Fennovoima nuclear power plant will be approved. By then Finland’s third nuclear plant had attained the required 60 percent domestic or EU/EEA ownership level. The new share owners were energy giant

with a 6.6 percent share and the construction firm SRV (which will be a building subcontractor on the site) with a 1.8 percent share, both of them via Voimaosakeyhtiö SF. Also steel manufacturer

, whose steelworks in

Tornio Tornio (; sv, Torneå; sme, Duortnus ; smn, Tuárnus) is a city and municipality in Lapland, Finland. The city forms a cross-border twin city together with Haparanda on the Swedish side. The municipality covers an area of , of which is ...

will be the biggest consumer of Fennovoima electricity, increased its ownership share by 1.8 percent to 14.1 percent. In May 2022, Fennovoima terminated its contract with

to build the power plant.

Criticism and financials

In July 2015 less than a third of Finns supported a Fennovoima nuclear plant. According to

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

's critique, nuclear electricity is more expensive than alternatives. Hurjat luvut Fennovoimasta – näinkö veronmaksajia huijataan?
/ref> The company's financial plans assume the plant will be able to sell electricity at no more than 50 €/MWh across its lifetime, while the

International Energy Agency The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the entire global energy sector, with a recent focus on curbing carb ...

estimates

LCOE The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), or levelized cost of energy, is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime. It is used for investment planning and to compare different methods ...

of 150 $/MWh for nuclear in the EU in 2020 (115 $/MWh in 2050), twice as expensive as offshore wind (75 $/MWh).

References

External links