Energy|The Helsinki energy company has established a nuclear energy program and now the preparation of the nuclear power plant begins in earnest. According to CEO Olli Sirka, replacing combustion-based power plants is simply not possible without nuclear power. “Too much regulation can make it very expensive.”
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Helen’s CEO Olli Sirkka believes that the nuclear power plant will be completed in Helsinki before 2035.
Helen has established a nuclear program and hired nuclear power experts to design the plant.
The company is surveying possible locations and manufacturers, a decision on plant supplier in 2026.
Helen’s strategy calls for nuclear power plant district heating to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Helsinki CEO of the city’s energy company Helen Olli Sirkka believes that Helsinki will have its own nuclear power plant already before 2035.
Nuclear power plans are not new in themselves. The first time Helen talked about small nuclear power was already a couple of years ago. Concrete is new.
Now the company has established an actual core program. It is meant to convey that the company is serious about building a nuclear power plant in the capital that will produce district heating and probably also electricity.
The company has already hired a group of nuclear power experts who manage the details of the plant’s design and licensing. In any case, the plans have been accelerated even further. Before, Sirkka has talked about the second half of the 2030s. Now the sights are on the first half.
“I believe that a nuclear power plant will be built in Helsinki before 2035,” he says.
“This one and during the next year we will map all possible places where one could be in the Helsinki area. After that, we map all possible nuclear power manufacturers. A decision on the plant supplier could be made by the end of 2026,” says Sirkka.
Helen already has a letter of intent with domestic small nuclear power developer Steady Energy, but according to Sirka, the company is considering all possible builders of so-called small nuclear power plants.
As nice as buying a domestic nuclear power plant would be.
“We want to send a message to the manufacturers, but also to the Ministry of Labor and Economy, which is preparing the law, that this is not a dream, but that we are really moving forward with the procurement process. Implementing Helen’s strategy requires a nuclear power plant.”
The core of the strategy is to stop all burning, and according to Sirka, that is not possible without new nuclear power connected to the district heating network.
It would be the last step in the revolution started ten years ago, the goal of which was to stop the huge carbon dioxide emissions of district heating production in Helsinki. The city was heated with coal.
First, the goal was to stop burning coal by 2030 and replace it with bioenergy. But it soon became clear that it was not enough. We want to get rid of smoking completely.
Although the carbon dioxide of burning wood is not officially calculated, it would be better not to release the carbon bound by the wood back into the atmosphere.
The last cargoes of coal will be burned in Salmisaari next winter. In the spring, coal is replaced with wood pellets and electricity. Even wood burning should end by 2040.
Fact
Helen’s old coal power plants have been revolutionized
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Vuosaari: Produces district heating and electricity from wood chips and, if necessary, natural gas. In addition, there is a thermal storage in the area. A pilot plant for hydrogen production is under construction, where water is turned into hydrogen with the help of electricity, waste heat to the district heating network.
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Sea Island: Coal will be replaced by pellets and electricity by next spring. Second unit completely closed. Instead, electric boilers and an air-to-water heat pump plant.
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Hanasaari: The hard coal power plant was closed in 2023. Next spring, Helen will build four 50 megawatt electric boilers and two large thermal batteries, i.e. water storage.
Nuclear power is not the only solution, but already so far the heat of coal and gas power plants has been replaced by wood and many new forms of production.
District heat is produced by heat pumps from various sources of waste heat. Heat pumps use electricity.
Heat is also stored in large water tanks, into which the water is heated in addition to heat pumps in electric kettles, i.e. electric boilers.
Hydrogen production is also planned, where heat would be generated as a by-product. That also
consumes a lot of electricity.
All this drastically increases Helsinki’s need for electricity. The district heating plants produced electricity as a byproduct, and now that must be replaced with electricity imported from elsewhere.
According to Sirka, it is not possible to replace the entire need for district heating with electricity. If you want to get rid of incineration, nuclear power would seem like the only realistic option.
“The optimum would be for roughly half of the district heating to come from nuclear power, half from electricity. These old incinerators are an emergency backup, but they would no longer be used at all under normal conditions,” he says.
In order to replace the electricity production of district heating power plants, Helen has also invested large sums in renewable electricity production. According to Sirka, there are about 50 megawatts of solar power installed and about 200 under construction.
“There will be a huge solar park in Uusikauptin.”
About 400 megawatts of wind power are installed and 600 megawatts are coming.
In addition the company builds batteries where electricity can be stored for cheap hours. The new district heating solutions are also flexible, meaning that their use can be scheduled for hours of cheap electricity.
Helen’s district heating system will have flexible production of a total of approximately 1,000 megawatts.
“Flexibility is an essential part of our future business. We take advantage of the large fluctuations in the price of electricity when there is so much wind power,” says Sirkka.
A total of approximately 600 megawatts of water boilers heated by electricity are under construction. Next winter, some will already be in use. On Friday, Helen said that she will build Europe’s largest electric boiler and thermal battery plant in the Hanasaari area. A thermal battery is practically a large thermos bottle.
“We can catch the wind in them. The green transition will be a bit wasted if we sell that clean electricity cheaply elsewhere.”
Helen also owns a tenth of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant and hydropower shares.
But what about that nuclear power. Do people really want a nuclear power plant almost in the heart of Helsinki?
“First of all, I believe that nuclear power plants have been built for so long that they know how to make them completely safe. These new types of facilities are even safer than the old ones.”
According to Sirka, the question is ultimately whether we want to get rid of emissions and burning or not.
“This is a pretty fundamental issue in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.”
And of course it’s also about money. If the regulation of small-scale nuclear power is made so strict that a heat-producing nuclear power plant cannot be built in connection with the district heating network, the price of district heating will rise.
“With regulation, it is possible to make this extremely expensive. People react to the expensive green transition quite differently. It always happens that you want to choose the cheapest option,” says Sirkka.
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