The nuclear power company TVO is not satisfied with the Energy Agency’s system protection decision – argued about it for a long time with Fingrid

A nuclear power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) is dissatisfied with the Energy Agency’s decision to cover the costs of the so-called system protection of the electricity system.

TVO is preparing to appeal the decision to the market court, the company says in its announcement.

TVO says that according to a recent decision by the Energy Agency, Fingrid, the grid company responsible for system protection, has the right to charge TVO the main part of the costs caused by the protection as a service fee from the beginning of 2025.

System protection is used to prepare for TVO’s Olkiluoto 3 power plant suddenly failing and disconnecting from the grid.

According to TVO, the Energy Agency’s decision on Monday is not yet legally binding, but it must be followed despite the appeal.

Fingrid announced on Tuesday that Fingrid and TVO have agreed on the payment arrangements for Olkiluoto 3’s system protection temporarily from the beginning of 2025.

According to Fingrid, Fingrid and TVO are responsible for the costs of system protection in accordance with what the Energy Agency decided on Monday.

Long the background of the ongoing dispute is the investigation request that TVO made in May 2022 regarding the activities of the state company Fingrid in connection with the Olkiluoto 3 project. According to TVO, Fingrid had neglected the development of the main grid. In TVO’s opinion, Fingrid should have developed the core network in such a way that system protection would not be necessary.

In addition, TVO considered in the investigation request that Fingrid has tried to make the temporary system protection permanent and to shift the obligations belonging to the grid company and the resulting costs to TVO.

Last January, the Energy Agency decided that system protection is Fingrid’s responsibility. At that time, TVO welcomed the Energy Agency’s decision.

Fingrid did not digest the Energy Agency’s decision and appealed to the market court. Fingrid considered that TVO should mainly be responsible for the costs of system protection.

According to Fingrid, the temporary payment arrangements for system protection do not directly affect the ongoing legal proceedings in the market court.

Olkiluoto 3 is the largest power plant unit in Finland and the Nordic countries, with an output of approximately 1,600 megawatts. A sudden loss of its entire production power would be a risk to the Finnish electricity system, so efforts have been made to reduce the effects by means of system protection.

In practice, the system protection works in such a way that if Olkiluoto 3 disconnects from the network, a signal is immediately sent via telecommunication connections to several industrial sites, which disconnect their consumption from the network in less than a second. This limits the impact of a sudden failure of Olkiluoto 3 on the main grid to 1,300 megawatts.

TVO and Fingrid have agreed on the implementation of system protection. System protection includes, among other things, factories of forest companies in different locations.

TVO: n leading expert Sami Jakonen told STT last January that the power of Olkiluoto 3 may have had to be reduced, for example, when the plant belonging to the system protection is in maintenance shutdown.

Jakonen said at the time that the situation varies from month to month. Sometimes there are several power restrictions on a monthly basis. Sometimes there are months when there are no restrictions on system protection.

“It is very important to be able to drive at full power, that is, there would be no such restrictions.”

In January, Jakonen spoke in favor of the development of system protection.

“It is very important that we now think about both short- and long-term development. We are fully supporting Fingrid in that work,” said Jakonen.