Oskarshamn 2 uprate put on hold

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

An uprate of unit 2 of the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in Sweden that would have increased its generating capacity by 27% has been indefinitely postponed, plant operator OKG announced today.

Oskarshamn 2 (Image: OKG)

The company said it has renegotiated the supply agreement for the uprate, which would increase the unit's gross output from 661 MWe to 840 MWe. It said the uprate, which had been scheduled to be implemented in 2017, has now been turned into an option. However, OKG noted, "In the current situation, there is no decision on when the option may be taken."

OKG CEO Johan Svenningsson said, "The current market forecasts indicate that there is presently no need for such a power uprate." He added, "Since the plant is already largely configured for the higher power, our contract has now been reformulated so that we can instead postpone such an increase until a time when the market demands it."

The power uprate of Oskarshamn 2 had been planned as the fourth and final phase of a SEK 8 billion ($978 million) modernization program for the boiling water reactor. Workers are currently carrying out the third stage in the program: commissioning, inspecting and testing upgraded equipment before the unit's planned restart on 20 December.

As part of the modernization of Oskarshamn 2, some 800 tonnes of new components have been installed and more than 100 kilometres of cable have been laid. A new control room and simulator have also been installed.

Work on a safety modernization of the unit began in June 2013. However, in March 2014 OKG announced it had decided to postpone the uprate work to allow it to focus on safety upgrade work. The company then said last June it intends to implement the power increase during 2017, two years later than originally planned.

In March this year, OKG said there was "clearly a miscalculation compared with the original time estimate for these works."

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News