power plant design and project planning,
which is running in parallel
with site preparation work.
In fact site work began at the end of
2014 with construction of the access
road, followed by the clearing of
trees. Fennovoima obtained an electrical
connection to site in April
2015.
Commenting on the early stages of
site preparation, Construction Director,
Jouni Sipiläinen said: “In parallel
to construction of the access road,
we continued with construction of
the roads to the site. We then handed
over the construction site to RAOS
a Finnish subsidiary of Rosatom in
July 2015, after which they began to
build their construction base and
roads around the plant area.”
Notably, all the roads leading to
and inside the site have been built at
4.6 m above sea level in order to
withstand all potential floods.
Sipiläinen explained: “Before the
Fukushima accident, roads were at a
level of 3.5 m. After Fukushima, we
changed our design to raise the level
of the roads by 1.1 m.”
The first building to be set up on site
was the training building, which became
functional at the start of 2017.
Here, construction staff take part in
introductory site training and receive
their site access cards. If training
classes are full, the building can accommodate
80 people plus Fennovoima
staff, i.e. around 90-95 in total.
The security gate building, which will
be the access control point to the area
under Fennovoima’s scope of work,
as well as to the plant when it is in
operation, is also up and running.
A temporary staff accommodation
area is also currently under construction.
This will be capable of housing
about 1000 people. “We started in
spring last year and about 200 places
are already ready. The rest will be
ready by around the end of 2019,”
said Sipiläinen.
While site preparation has been
progressing smoothly, the fluidity of
the plant layout design has been
challenging.
Sipiläinen explained: “The most
challenging thing has been that the
architect-engineer, Atomproekt (a
subsidiary of Rosatom), has not been
able to freeze the plant layout. That
prevents us from freezing the baseline
and continuing deeper excavation.
The plan now is that we will
have the frozen configuration baseline
in September this year so that we
can continue excavation work. ”
So far a total of around 400 000 m3
has been excavated and blasted –
about a third of the 1.2 million m3 to
be excavated.
A significant amount of offshore
work is also under way. Dredging
and underwater blasting has been
carried out for the cooling water inlet
and outlet areas.
“In the inlet area, including the sea
lane coming from the sea, we have
had some dredging and underwater
blasting work. Almost 900 000 m3
has been removed. This work is on
hold at the moment due to ice – we
can only do underwater blasting between
May 20th and October 10th,”
said Sipiläinen.
Special Project Supplement
explained: “Finland is a flat country.
Hydropower is over 10 per cent but
less than 15 per cent, and that will
remain the same. We have a specialty
that is peat power and we have 4-5
per cent in our electricity production
mix. In 2010, at the time we decided
to build Fennovoima’s project,
we also made two other big decisions.
The first was for energy efficiency
and the second was to have 6
TWh coming from wind power by
2020.”
He also noted that due to an expensive
feed-in-tariff of about €80/MWh
to support onshore wind, the Ministry
is lobbying the government to convert
more wood from the country’s
extensive forest to biofuels for power
production.
Acknowledging that replacing base
load coal fired capacity at a competitive
price will be challenging, he said:
“Nuclear is not even being discussed
because we have made the decision to
commit to it.”
Nuclear currently produces around
30 per cent of Finland’s electricity, a
figure that could rise to between 40
and 45 per cent when OL3 and
Hanhikivi 1 come on line.
Commenting on plans to increase
the nuclear share, Liisa Heikinheimo,
Deputy Director General of the energy
department at the Ministry of
Employment and Economy said: “In
the government programme, coal
use has to stop in 2020… then it will
be a play of mostly renewables and
nuclear for electricity production.
“When OL3 comes on line, nuclear
will account for around 36-37 per
cent of production. When we add
Fennovoima Hanhikivi 1 it will be
more than 40 per cent but not more
than 45 per cent; it depends on what
happens with the Loviisa units.”
Discussions are ongoing as to
whether their operating licence will
be extended.
The price of power from Hanhikivi
1 was obviously a key factor in the
decision to build the project. At €50/
MWh, the price of power from the
plant is not only lower than renewables,
it is notably far lower than the
price that will be delivered by other
high profile new build projects recently
agreed.
Hemminki said: “In the first years
of operation we will start with a price
of €50/MWh. This is significantly
lower than the UK Hinkley Point C
project, which has a strike price of
€92.50/MWh… the owners believe
the business case is robust.”
Importantly, Fennovoima has also
signed a fixed price turnkey EPC
contract with Rosatom for plant
construction. This means the price
that the owners will have to pay for
construction will not escalate in the
event of an overrun on the project
schedule.
Overrun on budget and schedule is
one of the biggest challenges developers
of large nuclear plants face.
OL3’s construction costs of OL3
were first estimated at €3.2 billion.
Now nearly ten years behind schedule,
final construction cost for the
plant owned by TVO is expected to
be €8.5 billion.
Fennovoima has therefore been
painstakingly thorough in its project
preparation and development, drawing
on experiences from other
projects.
Hemminki said: “We have hired a
lot of people that have come from
TVO, Fortum and STUK the Finnish
nuclear regulatory agency. The
tactic is to figure out what we can do
differently from the beginning, from
when the contract was negotiated.
We have already taken a number of
issues into account… One key is that
we have to make sure the plant design
is more mature than in previous
projects.”
The project preparation phase –
which saw the selection of Rosatom
as plant supplier, and the execution
of the environmental impact assessment
– ran from 2013-2014. In 2015,
it entered the infrastructure development
and design phase. Expected to
run through 2018, this three-year
period is being used for nuclear
THE ENERGY INDUSTRY TIMES - MAY 2018
All the roads leading to and
inside the site have been
built at 4.6 m above sea level
in order to withstand all
potential floods
Hemminki: the owners believe
the business case is robust
A temporary staff
accommodation area is
currently under construction
So far a total of around
400 000 m3 has been
excavated and blasted