Olkiluoto creates competitive edge to Finland in clean future

Teollisuuden Voima was founded by the large Finnish forest industry companies together with municipal energy companies to produce stable nuclear electricity to meet the increasing demand for electricity. As specified in the business principles of the company, we produce the electricity to the shareholders at cost price. The shareholders can either use the electricity or sell if forward.

Our first plant unit OL1, built with fully private financing, was started in Olkiluoto a little over 45 years ago. The start-up of its sister plant, OL2, took place two years later. This means that these two plant units have benefited Finnish consumers and Finnish industry already for decades.

The Olkiluoto 3 project was launched to make Finland more self-sufficient and cleaner – it was time to abandon fossil production forms and the consumption of electricity was expected to increase. The risk for the project and its implementation was carried – once again – by our owners from industrial enterprises to municipal energy companies. The financing for Europe’s newest nuclear power plant unit came from the owners’ investments and loans with repayment periods running far into the future.

OL3 was definitely the first large – well, very large – scale project on green transition in Finland. In the end, the commissioning stage of the plant unit coincided with a radical change in the global geopolitics. The energy sector found itself in a crisis due to the sudden stop of imports from Russia. The price of electricity rose everywhere in Europe and a shortage of electricity was considered by some a possibility also in Finland. This undoubtedly highlighted the significance of our production in a concrete manner to everybody in Finland. The importance of nuclear power as a factor that stabilises price as well as production became clear.

Higher electricity consumption indication of better economic prospects in Finland

In Finland, the level of electricity consumption has remained unchanged for quite some time, whereas production has increased. The volume of weather-dependent production has grown a lot. On some days, wind power production figures have exceeded 7,000 MW, at best.

However, there appears to still be demand for base load power. As shown by the figures, nuclear power production increased considerably after OL3 started in regulation production in the spring of 2023. The 1600 MW full power 24/7 production of the plant unit has been an important and welcome addition to complement weather-dependent production. The self-sufficiency and security of supply of Finnish electricity production have improved. Already, we are self-sufficient for most of the year. This has created a base for industrial investments in clean transition. And it has also affected the price of electricity – last year, spot electricity was in Finland the second cheapest to only Sweden in Europe.

The essential point is for the political message of Finland to remain clear in both what we say and what we do: Finland is a good choice for making an investment in clean future. Hopefully we will see, quite soon, plans turning into actions and investments made on Finnish soil. But when this happens and we get data centres, hydrogen production plants and maybe green steel mills in our country, the demand for clean electricity will increase. The increase in electricity consumption is, in fact, a good indicator of Finnish economy and attractiveness for investments. I personally believe Finland will be an attractive choice and for our part, we will support this future with our stable electricity production in Olkiluoto.

Business must be profitable also in changed market

Every day without production is usually extremely expensive. We are doing everything we can to ensure that our plant units operate reliably, but also flexibly as needed. We are actually facing a new situation in the nuclear sector, where the flexibility of production is emphasised. Instead of full power ahead the whole time, we must produce electricity when there is a demand for it.

Proactive operation is the best way to meet the challenges of the future. We have invested some 50 million Euros every year in Olkiluoto 1 and Olkiluoto 2. These modernisation campaigns have impacted both safety and the output of the plant units. Over the years, the power output has been increased from 660 MW to 890 MW. This is quite an ambitious increase in percentage. And since our focus is on the future, we are currently exploring the possibility of a service life extension and a power increase of about 80 MW. From the few months of the early years, we have managed to cut the duration of annual outages so that for decades they have been consistently less than a month in length.

There is still very little operating experience from our most recent newcomer plant OL3, but the availability factors of electricity production at OL3 were good already during the first operating cycle. OL3 was out of operation for only 84 hours. The schedule for the annual outage had to be extended, but as we gain more operating experience, we will be in a better position to plan both the schedules and the implementation of the service outages.

Electricity production cannot exceed consumption and therefore adaptability to an oversupply situation is also needed today. A nuclear power plant is built to be operated – not to stand still. In our case, adaptability only refers to a decrease of at most 40 percent in the production capacity. The changing electricity market has put as in a completely new situation. Instead of high load factors, we aim at high availability factors. The main thing is to keep the turbines turning and the generator producing electricity that drives the whole of Finland.

The nuclear industry can expect a great future and a time for new investments will come. With new winds blowing as we move forward, we will also need slightly more stable power.

The first area where we will see an increase in nuclear may be heat production, but if the predicted growth in electricity production becomes reality, the time for new electricity production plants will also come one day. Here in Olkiluoto, we are for now continuing our work on the availability factors. Fortunately we have Olkiluoto.