Nuclear power during the period of sanctions

Sergey Kondratiev, Deputy Head of the Economic Department of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to Nezavisimaya Gazeta on the Hanhikivi NPP construction in Finland.

Finland's refusal to build the Hanhikivi-1 nuclear power plant with Rosatom was primarily due to the country's preparations for an early entry into NATO, in connection with which Helsinki freezes economic cooperation with Moscow, Sergey Kondratiev believes.

“Fennovoima in recent years has faced widespread opposition to the project at the national and pan-European level. As a result, it still has not received a construction license and expected to start work on the site only in 2023,” the expert said.

At the same time, non-core departments often intervened in the implementation of the project - for example, in 2021, the Finnish Ministry of Defense conducted an “economic risk analysis” of the Hanhikivi-1 operation - a rather unusual practice for nuclear projects, Kondratiev added. In his opinion, the cancellation of the Hanhikivi-1 project is unlikely to have any serious impact on the European nuclear industry, even speaking about the unmotivated cancellation of the project. Therefore, it is highly likely that Fennovoima will have to change its approach, financing all future construction costs, and for a company with assets of 1.5 billion euros, this can be a difficult challenge, the expert explained.