Annual maintenance completed at Fortum's Loviisa nuclear power plant
Fortum Power and Heat Press release 13 October 2008
Annual maintenance completed at Fortum's Loviisa nuclear power plant Both units of the Loviisa nuclear power plant are back in power production. The annual maintenance of Unit 1 took 50 days and ended on September 29. The start-up was delayed by slightly over a week due to troubleshooting and repairing the control rod. Unit 2 was connected to the national grid as planned on October 13 after an annual maintenance of 22.5 days. In both units, one third of the fuel was changed. Unit 1 underwent extensive annual inspection and maintenance, which is performed every four years. The most extensive inspections were performed on the steam generators, the reactor pressure vessel and its inner parts, which were found to be in good condition. The automation systems of the power plant will be migrated gradually from analogue to digital by 2014. In the first phase, which took place during the annual maintenance of Unit 1, automation systems related to reactor functions and monitoring were taken into use. Unit 2 underwent a normal annual maintenance procedure, where the condition of the steam generators - one of the main objects of the inspection - was found to be good. The unit's large sea water pipelines were inspected and serviced as well. In addition to the 460 employees of the Loviisa power plant, approximately 1,000 inspection and maintenance professionals participated in the work, 150 of them foreigners. Although there was much work and many workers, we were able to significantly reduce radiation doses and the number of occupational safety related accidents from the previous years. These excellent results are due to our long-term work to improve safety. 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