Türkiye’s Bayraktar discusses Akkuyu NPP with Rosatom leadership

Türkiye’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar held talks with Rosatom leadership representatives in Istanbul. The first reactor at Akkuyu NPP is scheduled to start up in the second half of December.

Türkiye’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar held talks in Istanbul on October 24 with representatives of the leadership of the Russian state corporation Rosatom. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum and lasted about 45 minutes.

The talks were attended by Anton Dedusenko, who simultaneously chairs the board of directors of Akkuyu Nuclear JSC and serves as CEO of Rusatom Energy International JSC, as well as Kirill Komarov, Rosatom’s first deputy CEO and director of its development and international business division.

Строительство АЭС «Аккую» в Турции (2023)

Bayraktar said Türkiye was working to commission the first unit of Akkuyu NPP by the end of the year. He said more than 1,000 tests had been conducted on the first unit as part of pre-startup work. Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev previously said that the first reactor was scheduled to start up in the second half of December.

Akkuyu is Türkiye’s first nuclear power plant and is being built with Russian participation. It will consist of four power units, each equipped with a 1,200-megawatt Generation III+ VVER-1200 reactor. The project is being implemented under a build-own-operate model.