The lifecycle carbon footprint of the electricity production at Olkiluoto is low

The electricity produced in Olkiluoto is demonstrably very climate-friendly, with the calculated combined lifecycle footprint of the electricity produced at the three plant units only 9.1 g CO₂e/kWh. That is less than one tenth of the 100 g CO₂e/kWh* threshold value defined for climate-friendliness.

The calculation of the carbon footprint covers the entire life cycle of nuclear power from uranium mining to the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel and the decommissioning of plant units. If the transmission of electricity, i.e., the Finnish national grid, is also included, the carbon footprint is 13.8 g CO₂e/kWh.  

- Olkiluoto produced last year more than 30 percent of the electricity consumed in Finland. In other words, our production contributes significantly to the achievement of the climate goals in Finland, says Senior Vice President for Electricity Production at TVO, Marjo Mustonen. 

At that time, the Olkiluoto 3 plant unit was still undergoing the test production phase. This means that moving forward, the carbon footprint is expected to decrease further when the full production year of OL3 is taken into account in the calculation.

The carbon footprint calculation has been critically reviewed by a third party. For more information on carbon footprint calculation, go to: TVO - The lifecycle carbon footprint of the electricity production at Olkiluoto is low

Please also check out our recently published Environmental Report 2023 on TVO's website: www.tvo.fi/financialpublications.

*the treshold defined in EU taxonomy. The carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) describes the combined global warming potential of different greenhouse gas emissions. Different greenhouse gases have different global warming potentials (GWPs).