Big batteries and EVs to the rescue again as faults with new nuclear plant cause chaos on Nordic grids
The Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto was finally connected to the grid last year, at an estimated cost of €11 billion compared to the original budget of €3 billion. That cost blowout forced its developer, the French company Areva, to be bailed out by the French government. TVO, the reactor owner, says now that the new reactor has been commissioned, there is often too much production on the Finnish grid, and the reactor has to be dialled down, or curtailed, in much the same way that renewables often are. It is still not allowed to run at full capacity. “The electricity system in Finland faces on an increasingly frequent basis a situation where more down-regulating production capacity is needed because there is too much production,” TVO notes.
