The Loviisa

Nuclear Power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

Plant (NPP) ( fi, Loviisan ydinvoimalaitos, sv, Lovisa kärnkraftverk) is located close to the Finnish town of

Loviisa Loviisa (; sv, Lovisa ; formerly Degerby) is a municipality and town of inhabitants () on the southern coast of Finland. It is located from Helsinki and from Porvoo. About 43 per cent of the population is Swedish-speaking. The municipality co ...

. It houses two Soviet-designed VVER-440 PWR reactors, with capacities of 507 MW each. It is one of Finland's two operating

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

s, the other being the three-unit

Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant The Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant ( fi, Olkiluodon ydinvoimalaitos, sv, Olkiluoto kärnkraftverk) is one of Finland's two nuclear power plants, the other being the two-unit VVER Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is owned and operated by ...

History

The reactors at Loviisa NPP went into commercial operation in 1977 and 1981 respectively. To comply with Finnish nuclear regulation, Westinghouse and

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

supplied equipment and engineering expertise. This unorthodox mix of Western and Soviet enterprise led to the project developers being given the nickname "Eastinghouse". The plant is operated by Fortum Oyj. In 1996, the pressure vessel of Unit 1 was successfully heat annealed in order to clear embrittlement caused by neutron bombardment and impurities of the welding seam between the two halves of the vessel. The operating licence for both units has been renewed for a 50-year lifetime, Loviisa-1 to 2027 and Loviisa-2 to 2030. Fortum is reportedly considering applying for a further 20-year lifetime extension until 2050, which is a change from plans just a year earlier that would have seen the plant decommissioned on the earlier schedule. Fortum Power and Heat Oy applied to build a third reactor unit, to produce up to 1,000 MW_th of

district heating District heating (also known as heat networks or teleheating) is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location through a system of insulated pipes for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heating a ...

supply and from 800-1,600 MW of electrical generation, which the Finnish government declined on 21 April 2010. Spent fuel from the reactors were planned to be stored permanently at the

Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository The Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository is a deep geological repository for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel. It is near the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in the municipality of Eurajoki, on the west coast of Finland. It is being const ...

operated by

Posiva Posiva Oy is a Finnish company with headquarters in the municipality of Eurajoki, Finland. It was founded in 1995 by Teollisuuden Voima (60% of stock) and Fortum (40% of stock), two Finnish nuclear plant operators, for researching and creating a m ...

. In 2014

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

took over the modernisation of safety-related systems for both units from an AREVA-Siemens consortium and the project was completed in 2018. Since then, both Unit 1 and Unit 2 are operating at a nominal 507 MW capacity after updates. In 2022, Fortum submitted a plan for the reactors' life extension to 2050. Russia's

TVEL :''TVEL ( rus, ТВЭЛ, r=tvel) is also a Russian abbreviation of the "heat-releasing element", fuel rod.'' The TVEL Fuel Company (TVEL) is a Russian nuclear fuel cycle company headquartered in Moscow. It has operated since 1996. History and op ...

will continue to supply fuel until the contracts come up for renewal in 2027 and 2030, when Westinghouse Sweden may have developed an alternative.

References

{{Authority control Nucler Power Plant Nuclear power stations in Finland Nuclear power stations using pressurized water reactors Finland–Soviet Union relations Nuclear power stations using VVER reactors Buildings and structures in Uusimaa Energy infrastructure completed in 1977 1977 establishments in Finland

History

See also

References