Akkuyu to come online in 2023 as planned: Minister

ISTANBUL

There has been no change in plans as to when the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant will begin electricity generation, Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez has said, adding that the plant will become operational in October 2023.

“When construction work was launched in 2018, there were talks of the Akkuyu plant starting electricity production on Oct. 23, 2023. Back then, test production was scheduled for after October. There is no change in this plan,” Dönmez told reporters.

He added that works at the Akkuyu power plant are carried out under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Akkuyu officially became a nuclear power facility with the delivery of the first fresh nuclear fuel to the plant site on April 27.

The Akkuyu power plant is being constructed by Russia’s state atomic energy company Rosatom in the province of Mersin on the southern Mediterranean coastline.

The plant, which will have four VVER-1200 power reactors upon completion, will have a total installed capacity of 4,800 megawatts. It will produce 35 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, about 10 percent of the country’s power consumption, when it becomes fully operational.

“A second nuclear plant will be built in [the northern province of] Sinop. We are also looking for a site in the Thrace region to construct another power plant there,” Dönmez also said.