I&C upgrade project ends in success at Loviisa

Fortum's Loviisa plant is located on the southern coast of Finland. It has two Russian designed WER-440 reactors, which have been in operation since 1977 and 1980, respectively. While the major components of the plant are Russian, the l&C systems were mainly based on Siemens technologies (Simatic and Teleperm), for normal operation and safety related systems, and Russian technologies for reactor trip, rod control and neutron flux monitoring. To maintain safe and reliable operation until the end of the operating licence and accommodate new safety recommendations, it was decided in the early 2000s to modernise all l&C systems at the plant. • The first modernisation project, Loviisa Automation Renewal (Lara), started in 2005 (with different contractors from the recently completed ELSA project). As part of the LARA project the preventative protection and control rod drive position monitoring systems at both units were replaced with digital l&C in 2008 and 2009. Also, a significant part of the operational (non-safety) automation was at that time renewed with digital systems.