Fortum has awarded Caverion a contract to install four air-cooled cooling towers at its Loviisa nuclear power plant in Finland.

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Fortum has awarded Caverion a contract to install four air-cooled cooling towers at its Loviisa nuclear power plant in Finland. The project is valued at over EUR 2 million.

Caverion will be responsible connecting the cooling towers that are housed in three square building (10x15x10m) with the operational plant. The scope of work mainly involves installation of steel frame structures, wall and roof insulations and pipelines in the cooling towers. Caverion will also install electrical and automation systems for the project.

One cooling tower will be connected in reserve to the residual heat removal system at each unit, which is used for removing decay heat from the reactor. The second cooling tower will be connected to the intermediate component cooling system, which cools the spent fuel pool cooling systems and other safety-ciritical components.

Installation of electrical equipment is already under way, and is expected to be completed in February 2015. The cooling towers are due to be commissioned in summer 2015, Fortum says.

Fortum has been studying and developing a new independent cooling system concept for its Loviisa nuclear power plant for ‘several years,’ even prior to the Fukushima accident in March 2011. The system, it says, will provide a short- and long-term robust cooling solution in extreme cases when seawater cooling become unavailable. The towers themselves are being supplied by Hungarian firm GEA EGI Contracting/Engineering Co. Ltd.

Under a separate agreement, Caverion also announced that it will to provide valve maintenance and mechanical installations to the Loviisa nuclear power plant for the next three years.


Photo: Example cooling tower configuration (without protective building)