Press Release

Fennovoima expects the Construction License to be granted in 2019

Fennovoima submitted its Construction License application to the Government in the summer of 2015. The application includes e.g. a general description of the plant site, plant type, main safety systems, and Fennovoima’s organization. The Construction License for the nuclear power plant is granted by the Finnish Government, and it requires a positive safety assessment from the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK). Fennovoima is in the process of supplying STUK with the design documentation of the nuclear power plant for assessment.

“We have reviewed the progress of the work and decided to reschedule our goal to obtain the permit for 2019. Taking Finnish requirements and legislation into consideration in the design work has taken more time from the plant supplier than we originally expected. Since the delivery of documents during the first two years has been slower than expected, neither STUK has been able to carry out their own assessment work on the scale they planned,” states the CEO of Fennovoima Toni Hemminki.

According to Hemminki, things are developing in the right direction. For example, the plant supplier and main designer have brought almost one hundred new experts to Helsinki during last spring and summer. This has speeded up the work significantly.

The Hanhikivi 1 power plant will use Rosatom’s VVER technology.

”Rosatom has built dozens of nuclear power plants around the world, and it is the most experienced nuclear power plant supplier in the world, so I am confident about the end result. For us, it is a big advantage that Hanhikivi 1’s reference power plant LAES-2 will be completed in Sosnovy Bor next year. All the latest know-how and experience will be at our disposal during the construction phase,” Hemminki adds.

Fennovoima will provide a more detailed estimate for the schedule of the Construction License documents once the schedule has been analysed with the plant supplier.

When completed, Hanhikivi 1 will produce about 9 TWh of zero-emission electricity per year. In 2016, electricity consumption in Finland amounted to approximately 85 TWh.