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Russian plant for Turkey’s Akkuyu

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Aylin D. Miller

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Turkey’s first nuclear power plant will be built, owned and operated by Russia after the two countries signed an agreement during a visit by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to Ankara.

Medvedev and Gul (Image: Presidential Press and Information Office)The deal, signed in front of Medvedev and Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan, covers the construction of four 1200 MWe VVER units at the Akkuyu site on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. Unlike Russia’s previous overseas reactor construction projects, however, the plant will be built, operated and middlefinanced through a Russian project company. Russian state nuclear company Rosatom has been given until mid-August to create the subsidiary, which will initially be 100% Russian-owned. In the longer term, Russia may sell up to 49% of the company to other investors from Turkey and elsewhere, but will retain the 51% controlling stake. Turkish firm Park Teknik and state generation company Elektrik Uretim AS (EUAS) have been tipped as likely candidates eventually to take up significant shares in the $20 billion project.

Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko described the establishment of a Russian-owned reactor overseas as a long-sought after development, saying it was “much more interesting” to be a co-investor rather than simply the constructor of such projects.

The site for the reactors will be provided by EUAS. The Turkish Electricity Trade and Contract Corporation (TETAS) has guaranteed to purchase a fixed amount of the plant’s output (70% of the electricity generated by the first two units and 30% of that from the third and fourth reactors) over the first 15 years of commercial operation at a reported price of 12.35 US cents per kWh, with the rest of the electricity to be sold on the open market by the project company. The reactors are expected to enter service in the period 2016-2019, with the first one due to start up within seven years of receipt of a construction licence and the others following at yearly intervals.

The agreement also provides for Russia and Turkey to cooperate in other areas of the nuclear fuel cycle including the treatment of used nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, decommissioning and the possible construction of a Turkish nuclear fuel fabrication plant. However, such cooperation would be carried out under separate terms.

Both the Turkish and Russian parliaments must now ratify the agreement before it can come into force.

World Nuclear Watch


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One response to “Russian plant for Turkey’s Akkuyu”

  1. mok10501 Avatar
    mok10501

    This is such an important issue for the country and for the nation but still is cryptic and no one knows and understands this BOO(Built-Own- and Operate) model which is extremely limited for a technology transfer for the country. The former model BOT(Built-Operate-Transfer) which was suggested by Ozal at the time was even so loosely defined arrangement and was very difficult, if not impossible, to have a technology transfer. Turkey needs to have technology transfer as the first and key item in the contracts that signs in nuclear area. You cannot buy a nuclear power plant like a packet of cigarettes or just like a hen house. First of all, who is going to regulate and what laws and controls will apply in construction while our good friends(!) Russians built these units in Turkey. Why do we need this BOO? which is nothing else but purchasing electricity from the Bulgaria or Georgia. What is the Turkey’s benefit of building this Russian owned units in Turkey? Why on earth our good friends built these units in their land and sell the electricity to us based on the agreed price? The state has to be involved with the nuclear business regardless of who builds it, and based on what model of business is applied. The plant ownership and particularly the spent nuclear fuel and long term fuel supply as well as fuel technology transfer issues are the key issues which should be negotiated and put in writing at the beginning of the deal, not after wards. There are plenty of other issues require our direct involvement when the subject is nuclear. These are not the natural gas burners that you can suck the blood out of the country as usual business and scrap them if you can’t afford it anymore. I personally do not have any preferences as to whom be the supplier of our first nuclear power plant, but I do care the right one be selected and the right way to be built under the right regulations and controls. These are my minimums for the sake of safety and the creation of the required safety culture in my country as well as for the entire nuclear technology of the world. From those perspectives, BOO is very unworkable model to have a nuclear technology transfer for Turkey. I have nothing against the Russian nuclear technology and their capabilities at all. However, it would be everyone’s surprise if Russia can complete a nuclear power plant in seven years. Their masterpiece in Iran’s Busher site is already taking 12th years and still counting for the start up. Our ministers who frequently visits Iran should have already explored the Iranian’s opinion on the Busher reactor.

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