Finland needs to build new nuclear power plants before existing units are taken offline for good and should be targeting a 50% nuclear share of electricity generation, up from around 35% today, according to Esa Vakkilainen, professor of energy technology at Lappeenranta University of Technology.

Vakkilainen was quoted in Teollisuuden Voima Oyj’s (TVO) corporate newsletter as saying the construction of large-scale power plant units takes time, starting with the complicated licencing procedure, and “we must ensure that old plants are not shut down for good before replacement power plants have been completed”.

He told TVO, owner and operator of the three-unit Olkiluoto nuclear station, that electricity consumption in Finland will rise in the next few decades with the electrification of industry and traffic. “Due to the growing volumes of wind and solar power stable baseload power is needed”, he said.