Finland's 10-Year Wait for a Nuclear Reactor Just Got Longer



Finland's 10-Year Wait for a Nuclear Reactor Just Got Longer | energy, Finland, Stora Enso, UPM,

HELSINKI (From news reports) -- Finland will have to add another five months to the decade-long wait to start production at a nuclear reactor once billed as the world's biggest.

Olkiluoto-3, able to power about 3 million homes, will be delayed until May 2019 from its previously expected to start at the end of next year, according to Teollisuuden Voima Oyj, the Helsinki-based utility that will operate the unit. Areva SA, the supplier, said it needed more time to adjust the production schedule.

Plagued by cost overruns and legal tangles, the delay is the latest setback for the 1,600-megawatt reactor meant to provide cheap power to companies from Finnish papermakers UPM-Kymmene Oyj and Stora Enso Oyj to a Google Inc. server farm. The nation last year had to import a quarter of its electricity in the wholesale market, where prices for delivery to Finland are about 21 percent higher than the Nordic-region average.

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