OREANDA-NEWS. Both units at Fortum’s Loviisa nuclear power plant are back in production after their annual maintenance outages. The annual outage of Unit 1 lasted nearly 38 days, until 14 September 2016, and the maintenance outage of Unit 2 lasted approximately 20 days, until 7 October and was completed 3 days ahead of schedule. The duration of the annual outage of Unit 1 was prolonged by about 5 days due to repair of the refuelling machine.

This year Unit 1 underwent the extensive inspection outage performed every 4 years and Unit 2 the short annual outage. In conjunction with the annual outages, about one quarter of the fuel in both units was replaced.

In addition to the normal scheduled maintenance and fuel reloading, the turbine's high-pressure housings were renewed, main transformers and generator breakers replaced as well as work related to the steam generators at both units performed. At Unit 1, also two reheaters were replaced. At Unit 2, a major overhaul of stator and replacement of generator rotor was carried out.

Good results have been achieved in the long-term development efforts to lower the radiation levels at the plant during the annual outage. Thanks to the continuous development work, the collective radiation doses for personnel during annual outage at Unit 1 were the lowest in the plant’s history and among the lowest for Unit 2 compared to similar types of outages.

A total of some 950 external employees participated in the Loviisa power plant’s annual outage that started in August and in ongoing modernisation projects. About 80 per cent of the workers were Finnish subcontractors. There are approximately 500 Fortum employees and some 100 permanent contractors working at the Loviisa power plant year round.

Loviisa power plant
In 2015, the load factor at Fortum’s fully-owned Loviisa nuclear power plant was 92.9%. On an international scale, the load factor was among the best in the world for pressurised water reactor power plants. The plant produced a total of 8.47 terawatt hours, which is approximately 13% of Finland’s total electricity production. The Loviisa power plant employs approximately 500 Fortum employees and 100 permanent contractors. In 2015, Fortum invested EUR 80 million into the Loviisa nuclear power plant.