Essy Lehto and Nora Bouli
HELSINKI – The long-delayed Finnish nuclear reactor Olkiluoto 3 began test operation on Saturday, operator TVO said, supplying electricity to the national grid, which is expected to reduce the need for electricity imports over time and lead to lower prices.
Due to technological issues that have been the subject of lawsuits, the 1.6 gigawatt (GW) reactor was originally scheduled to open in 2009. This is the first new nuclear power plant in Finland in over four decades and the first in Europe in almost 15 years.
Olkiluoto 3 has started test production at just over 0.1 gigawatts, a fraction of its capacity, with full, regular power generation scheduled by the end of July.
“OL3 significantly improves Finland’s electricity self-sufficiency and helps achieve carbon neutrality goals,” operator Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) said in a statement.
Once it reaches full capacity, it is expected to meet 14% of Finland’s electricity needs, reducing the need for imports from Russia, Sweden and Norway.
“Olkiluoto 3 will reduce Finland’s dependence on imports and it will become a cheaper price zone,” Alexander Esser, an economist at Aurora Energy Research, told Reuters.
Finland’s net electricity imports have averaged 13 terawatt-hours (TWh) over the past few years, Esser said, and should drop to 5-8 TWh by 2025 with the commissioning of Olkiluoto 3.
Nuclear power remains controversial in Europe, with some countries such as Germany ditching reactors for safety reasons, while others including France and the UK are debating new developments.
TVO is owned by the Finnish utility company Fortum and smaller energy and forestry companies.
Finland is the only Scandinavian country with a large electricity shortage, says Marius Holm Rennesund, a partner at Oslo-based consulting firm Thema.
Thema predicts that wholesale electricity prices in Finland will fall to €60 per megawatt hour (MWh) in 2023 from a projected average of €70/MWh in 2022, although the expected decline will also be due to lower gas prices.
In 2024, wholesale electricity prices in Finland are likely to drop to 45 EUR/MWh, Rennesund said.
(Reporting by Essi Lehto in Helsinki and Nora Buli in Oslo; editing by Terje Solsvik)