Commissioning of the EPR at Olkiluoto in Finland has been delayed again, this time by six months to July 2020, utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj said yesterday. The new date was given in an updated schedule for the OL3 EPR unit from the plant supplier Areva-Siemens Consortium.

Uzbekistan has decided it now wants to build four nuclear power units and not just two as previously stated, Alisher Sultanov, the country's energy minister, said in an interview with news agency Kun.uz this week.

The Czech government has given preliminary approval for Elektrárna Dukovany II - a subsidiary of utility ČEZ - to build at least one new nuclear power unit. The decision was announced in a government resolution published yesterday by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The United Arab Emirates' Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation has officially certified Nawah Energy's first group of operators for the Barakah nuclear power plant. Certification of operators is a key requirement for the issue of the plant's operating licence.

ASE Group has conducted a test-run of all four of the main circulating pumps of the first unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant as part of preparations for hydraulic testing of the systems and equipment of its primary and secondary circuits.

Unit 2 of the Taishan nuclear power plant in China's Guangdong province has been connected to the electricity grid, becoming the second EPR reactor to reach the commissioning milestone after Taishan 1. Unit 2 is expected to enter commercial operation later this year.

GE Steam Power is to continue providing full maintenance services on two turbine islands at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant in Romania under a newly announced USD120 million multi-year agreement with Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica. Meanwhile, work has begun at GE's Belfort site to manufacture the first Arabelle steam turbine for Turkey's Akkuyu nuclear power plant.
 

Construction of the concrete basemat has been completed for the nuclear island of the first of two EPR units at the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset, England. The major milestone came as the Confederation of British Industry called for the UK government to support the construction of more new reactors.

Eight welds in the main steam transfer pipes that penetrate the two walls of the containment of the Flamanville EPR must be repaired before the reactor is commissioned, France's nuclear safety regulator, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire has told EDF. The utility will assess the decision's impact on the cost and schedule of the project.

Nuclear fuel will not be loaded into the core of the first-of-a-kind EPR at Olkiluoto until at least the end of August, Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj said today. Under the previous schedule, fuel loading had been due to take place this month.

The outer safety dome has been installed on the containment building of unit 2 at the Karachi nuclear power plant in Pakistan. The unit is the first of two Chinese-supplied Hualong One reactors being built at the site.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published its final safety evaluation report on Tennessee Valley Authority's application for an early site permit for the potential use of a site at Clinch River for two or more small modular reactors. The regulator concluded there are no safety concerns to prevent issuing such a permit.