Outage to suspend production at OL2, OL1 nuke plants

The electricity production at the Olkiluoto 2 (OL2) nuclear power plant will remain suspended from Sunday (April 28) due to annual outage, said the owner of the plant Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) in a press release

At Olkiluoto 1 (OL1), the service outage, which will last for about 15 days, will start on 12 May.

The consistently good condition of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant and the as uninterrupted production as possible are ensured through annual outages carried out at regular intervals.

At the OL1 and OL2 plant units, refuelling outages and service outages take place on alternate years.

After the first years of operation, annual outages at Olkiluoto 3 can be implemented also at intervals of 18 or 24 months.

The planned duration of the refuelling outage at OL2 is eight days.

In addition to the actual refuelling, various yearly repeated preventive maintenance activities, inspections, fault repairs and tests are to be carried out at OL2. OL2 is expected to be restored to electricity production on May 6.

For OL1, the service outage starts on 12 May and is estimated to take a good 15 days. Major work activities to be implemented during the service outage include, for example, the maintenance of the main transformer and the generator switch, the replacement of the control rod drive mechanisms as well as the servicing of the feedwater and condensate pumps and two main circulation pumps.

Electrical feedthrough modules and reactor automation will also be replaced at the plant unit. Refuelling is also always included in the service outage, and thus carried out every year at the plant units.

The annual outage of OL1 is planned to be completed by 28 May.

In addition to TVO's own personnel, this year about 1,000 subcontractor employees take part in the annual outage works at OL2 and OL1.

About 150 foreign experts in special fields partake in the annual outages.

At all of the Olkiluoto plant units, the annual slogan for the outages is this year “Safe production through teamwork”. Plant Manager Nina Paaso thinks it is very apt.

“Seamless cooperation and continuous communication are the be-all and end-all when carrying out maintenance on this scale. This guarantees safe operating cycles without disruptions, Paaso said.