Turkey granted permission to Akkuyu Nuclear Company on Tuesday to operate the first power unit of the country’s first nuclear power plant in the southern Mersin province.
Akkuyu Nuclear Company announced that it has received the necessary permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NDK) for the commissioning of the first reactor of the power plant.
According to a statement released by the company, the first application documents required for the permit were submitted to the NDK on March 17 and the second on August 24.
With this permission, the final phase of the construction of the Akkuyu NPP, namely start-up, adjustment and start-up, which is the basis for the safe operation of the power plant, will be initiated.
Work will then be completed to obtain the necessary license for the operation of the first power unit. Once the license is obtained, nuclear fuel will be loaded into the reactor and pre-commissioning control procedures will be initiated.
“The decision of the Turkish Nuclear Regulatory Authority to issue a permit to commission the first unit of the Akkuyu NPP confirms that we have fulfilled all the requirements of the Turkish legislation, international standards for the construction of nuclear power plants, and are ready to move on,” Anastasia Zoteeva, director general of the project company, Akkuyu Nuclear, was quoted as saying in a Telegram statement by the Russian state atomic energy agency Rosatom.
The Akkuyu NPP, located in the Gulnar district of Mersin, will have a power generation capacity of 35 billion kilowatt hours after all four units are completed.
According to the intergovernmental agreement between Türkiye and Russia, the first unit is expected to start electricity generation in 2025, seven years after the construction license for the first power unit was obtained.
