CONSULTING

On 22 December 2015, FANC authorized the lifetime extension and restart of Doel-1 and -2.
Beyond the issues of lifetime extensions and restarts, FANC and his director Jan Bens made some
headlines in Belgium over the past year. 713 An external, interview-based audit of FANC was carried
out and the 70-page report leaked to the press in April 2016. The conclusions by the auditors of
Whyte Corporate Affairs seriously undermine the credibility of the Belgian Safety Authority, as
they identified a “toxic internal climate”, “lack of leadership”, “power struggles” and more. 714
Finland operates four units that supplied a record 22.3 TWh or 33.7 percent of its electricity
in 2015 (with a maximum of 38.4 percent in 1986). Finland has adopted different nuclear
technologies and suppliers, as two of its operating reactors are PWRs built by Russian contractors
at Loviisa, while two are BWRs built by ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) at Olkiluoto.
In December 2003, Finland became the first country to order a new nuclear reactor in Western
Europe in 15 years. AREVA NP, then a joint venture owned 66 percent by AREVA and 34 percent
by Siemens 715 , is building a 1.6 GW EPR at Olkiluoto (OL3) under a fixed-price turn-key contract
with the utility TVO. After the 2015 technical bankruptcy of AREVA Group, the majority
shareholder, the French government, decided to integrate the reactor-building division into a
subsidiary majority-owned by state utility EDF and open to third-party investment. However, EDF
has made it clear repeatedly that it will not take over the billions of euros’ liabilities linked to the
costly Finnish AREVA adventure. 716 Responsibility for those liabilities remains unclear. An
attempt by French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron to accelerate the resolution of the
pending international conflict opposing AREVA and TVO ended without apparent progress.
The OL3 project was financed essentially on the balance sheets of the Finland's leading firms and
municipalities under a unique arrangement that makes them liable for the plant’s indefinite
capital costs for an indefinite period, whether or not they get the electricity—a capex “take-or-pay
contract”.
Construction started in August 2005 at Olkiluoto on the west coast. The project is at least nine
years behind schedule and is at least about three times over budget. In its 2015 Annual Report,
TVO notes:
According to an announcement of the OL3 turnkey supplier, the delivery will be delayed from the
original schedule according to which the power plant unit should have been in production as of 30
April 2009. In compliance with the supply contract the company is entitled to compensation in case
the delay is due to the supplier. Additionally, because of the delay the company has incurred and will
713 See for example a series of papers in Le Soir, “Prolongation du Nucléaire”, (in French), see
http://www.lesoir.be/tag/prolongation-du-nucleaire?page=3, accessed 18 June 2016.
714 Le Soir, 25 April 2016, extract quoted by Jean-Marc Nollet, “Un audit sème le doute sur la crédibilité de
l'agence nucléaire”, Press Release, 25 April 2016, (in French), see http://www.nollet.info/actualites/unaudit-same-le-doute-sur-la-cradibilita-de-laagence-nuclaaire,
accessed 18 June 2016.
715 Siemens quit the consortium in March 2011 and announced in September 2011 that it was abandoning
the nuclear sector entirely.
716 Le Monde, “EDF pose ses conditions au rachat des réacteurs d’Areva”, 19 May 2015, see
http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2015/05/19/edf-pose-ses-conditions-au-rachat-des-reacteurs-dareva_4636164_3234.html,
accessed 2 July 2016.
Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al. 176 World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016