First unit of Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear plant complete

Construction work on the first unit of Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear project has been completed, Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev has said.

Preparations for the cold and hot tests, the next stage of the commissioning process at the reactor facility, are actively underway, following which commissioning operations will begin in the coming weeks, he told the state-run Anadolu news agency.

The 4,800 megawatt (MW) Akkuyu plant, which will cost $20 billion, is being developed by Rosatom, a Russian state-backed nuclear energy company.

“A comprehensive evaluation will be conducted based on the results of all completed work, and the necessary arrangements for the final stage will be implemented. This process is like the last 100 metres of a 42km marathon,” Likhachev said.

There will be 1,930 personnel working in the first power unit, of which more than 40 percent are Turkish citizens, he said.

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The scheduled startup for the first reactor was pushed back from 2023 to late this year, with the other three reactors scheduled to go online by 2028.

Plans released last year by the Turkish energy ministry foresee at least three more large nuclear plants, each with a capacity similar to Akkuyu, and the potential development of smaller, stand-alone modular reactors capable of generating 1,200MW each.

Ankara plans to add 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity by 2035, with a longer-term goal of 20GW by 2050, including small modular reactors.