Nuclear Power | Pre-planning of Kuopio’s small nuclear power plant begins – The city is closely monitoring the power plant plans in Helsinki

A small nuclear power plant construction in Finland is one step closer, as Kuopio Energia and technology company Steady Energy have signed a pre-planning agreement for construction.

With the one-year contract, the planning work that is starting now aims at making an investment decision and building the facility, Steady Energy and Kuopion Energia say in their press release.

It is a continuation of last year’s letter of intent, from which Helsingin sanomat newspaper reported in December.

As part of the agreement, Kuopion Energia will start an environmental impact assessment of the possible locations of the small nuclear power plant.

Kuopion Energia has already done a mapping of possible investment locations with the planner in the last half of the year, says the CEO of Kuopion Energia Esa Lindholm For Helsingin Sanomat. Suitable places for small-scale power plants in cities are, for example, existing plots of land suitable for industrial use.

According to Lindholm, based on the survey, the three most interesting investment locations were Kuopio’s Kumpusaari fairly close to the city center, Hepomäki in southern Kuopio, and Sorsasalo in northern Kuopio.

“When investigating, we did not know that Steady Energy’s idea is to place small nuclear power plant reactors inside the rock by mining. It may still affect investment locations,” says Lindholm.

“After the summer holidays, we should take a look at these with the planner and Steady as part of the planning process.”

District heating network it would be important to be located as close as possible to the location of the power plant, so that it would not require the construction of new pipes, says Lindholm. He reminds that it is also an issue of energy efficiency.

Another requirement for the investment site is a plot of sufficient size. However, a small-scale power plant does not require a very large space either underground or above ground. In practice, only a small and low hall-like industrial facility would be placed on the ground.

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CEO of Steady Energy Tommi Nymanin according to the statement, the power plant would only have environmental effects in a small area, and it could be safely located near a settlement as well.

Kuopion Energia is also investigating the Radiation Protection Center (Stuk) for more information on what would be a safe location from the point of view of nuclear power safety and how close to a populated area the power plant should be built.

From the final one the investment will be decided by Kuopio Energia, which will apply for the necessary formula changes in due course. The planning decision, on the other hand, belongs to the city of Kuopio.

The construction time of the power plant is estimated to be 3.5 years. The final goal of the preliminary agreement would be to be able to start building a small nuclear power plant to produce district heat in Kuopio already in the early 2030s.

According to Esa Lindholm, CEO of Kuopio Energia, Kuopio’s current power plant units are getting old.

“In 2035, we must have something to replace it. A small-scale power plant is one option, but there are many other options,” says Lindholm.

Lindholm says, after the one-year pre-planning agreement, it will be decided whether to continue planning or to turn to other alternatives.

Kuopio Energia also closely monitors how other companies and cities get excited about small nuclear power. Steady Energy tie the knot in October, a letter of intent was also signed with the Helsinki energy company Helen.

“Not like this [kaukolämpöreaktoria] it is worth developing only for Kuopio. This requires quite a lot of know-how in nuclear power technology, know-how in fuel procurement, know-how related to maintenance and so on,” says Lindholm.

Surroundings- and climate minister Kai Mykkänen (kok) told last October To Ylethat the government aims to speed up the construction of small nuclear power plants.

Small nuclear power projects are also underway or being prepared elsewhere, such as for example in Canada, Great Britain, Sweden and France.