ANNUAL OUTAGE TO BEGIN AT THE LOVIISA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
Fortum Power and Heat
Press release
7 August 2008 at 14.45 EET
ANNUAL OUTAGE TO BEGIN AT THE LOVIISA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
Unit 1 of Fortum's Loviisa power plant in Finland will be shut down on Saturday
9 August for annual outage. The unit is scheduled to undergo extensive annual
inspection and maintenance, which is performed every four years. In terms of
work schedule, the major maintenance tasks are related to the inspection of the
inner parts of the reactor pressure vessel and to the reactor itself. Various
other important maintenance and alteration tasks, such as the replacement of the
stator of the main generator of the primary turbine, which already began on
Tuesday 5 August, will also be performed at the unit.
Installation tasks of the extensive and ongoing automation renewal project,
which will last several years, were already started during the summer. As a part
of the annual outage of Unit 1, process systems that cannot be connected to the
new automation system while the plant is in production will now be connected to
the system. The process of switching from an analogue automation system to a
digital one has been divided into various stages, and will continue in step with
the annual maintenance periods until the year 2014.
The annual outage of Unit 2 will begin when Unit 1 is back in production near
the end of September. Unit 2 will undergo a short annual maintenance procedure
where, in addition to normal maintenance tasks and re-fuelling, the most
significant tasks will be the inspection of the steam generators. The unit's
large sea water pipelines will also be inspected and serviced.
In addition to 460 employees of the Loviisa power plant, approximately 950
inspection and maintenance professionals from 80 companies will participate in
the work. 150 of them will arrive from Germany, Hungary, Russia, Slovakia, Spain
and other countries.
The annual outages of both units are expected to be completed by mid-October.
High quality annual maintenance operations guarantee a safe and undisturbed
production for the power plant. Last year, the Loviisa power plant generated
over 8 terawatt hours of power, sufficient for the annual consumption of
approximately 400,000 detached houses with electric heating. The capacity
factors of both units, reflecting their level of performance, were among the
best in the world at 95%.
Fortum Power and Heat
Loviisa power plant
Communications
For further information, please contact:
Raimo Raitanen, Head of the Technology Unit, tel. +358 10 455 3300
Mauri Lindqvist, Head of the Annual Maintenance Team, tel. +358 10 455 3460
Pertti Salonen, Head of the Maintenance Unit, tel. +358 10 455 3100
