Turkey prepares for the commissioning of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant

With the new Akkuyu nuclear power plant, Turkey will mathematically cover the electricity needs of the metropolis of Istanbul in the future. Although the planned nuclear waste repository has not yet been built, President Erdogan has already announced the construction of further reactors.

The Turkish Energy Minister has announced the imminent commissioning of the first Akkuyu nuclear power plant. The plant's first reactor is currently in an intensive testing phase, said Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, according to the state news agency Anadolu, when presenting the review report of Turkey's energy policy, which was prepared jointly with the International Energy Agency (IEA). The energy minister did not give an exact start date for regular nuclear power plant operations. Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke about expanding joint nuclear energy projects at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The first Turkish nuclear power plant is being built near the village of Akkuyu in the Mediterranean province of Mersin. In May 2010, the governments in Ankara and Moscow signed an agreement on this. The Russian state-owned company Rosatom is in charge. The first of four reactors was originally scheduled to go into operation in 2025; the total cost of the plant is estimated at 20 billion US dollars (17.2 billion euros). Once completed, the nuclear power plant is expected to cover around ten percent of Turkey's energy needs - roughly the consumption of the metropolis of Istanbul.

At a meeting between President Putin and President Erdogan at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan last week, Erdogan announced that with the opening of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, the first steps would also be taken to commission other power plants. “We are in the middle of these preparations,” said Erdogan. Turkey declares the expansion of nuclear energy with the aim of decarbonizing its energy production. The country is heavily dependent on energy imports.

The opposition-affiliated Anka news agency reported, referring to representatives of the Energy Ministry, that the construction of a storage facility for nuclear waste was planned in the Polatli district near the capital Ankara. The center should be put into operation by 2035 at the latest. The construction has not yet been confirmed by the state.