OL3 - Current news in February 2010

Manpower on the Olkiluoto 3 construction site reached the peak last year. At present the project is carried forward by some 3600 workers towards the installation of the main components in the nuclear island. The installation phase will be achieved in the next few months.

The main crane, or the Polar crane, has to be commissioned in the reactor building before the main components (reactor pressure vessel, steam generators and pressuriser) can be hauled into the building. The Polar crane will also be temporarily equipped with auxiliary cranes to ensure adequate capacity for lifting operations that exceed 500 tons.

Construction work also continues at the same time as the pace of installation operations picks up. The buildings' degree of completion is nearing ninety percent and many of the buildings are already at roof height. Concreting work in the dome part of the reactor building is also progressing: the objective is to complete the concreting of the dome by the summer. Like all concreting operations, also work in the dome part is controlled at all stages.

The inspection process applied to concreting operations is systematic and detailed, and comprises several phases. Approved plans are first required to start the work. This stage is followed by work phase inspections, inspection of readiness for concreting, control of concreting operations, final inspection of the structure, and approval. Each stage is documented and approved before moving on to the next stage.

The amount of resources required for concreting operations and control of these operations will decrease in the future, but the total manpower on the site is expected to remain close to four thousand, as the number of installation staff is on the increase. The three largest nationalities on the site at present include Finnish (25%), Polish (24%) and German (19%).