Turkey ratifies agreement for new plant at Sinop

Thursday, 2 April 2015

Turkey's parliament has ratified an intergovernmental agreement with Japan to construct a nuclear power plant at Sinop. The two countries signed the so-called host government agreement in October 2013.

Ownership of the 4800 MWe plant will be split between a consortium of Japan's Mitsubishi and Itochu, and France's Areva and GDF Suez, with 65%, and Turkey's state-run power producer EUAS, with 35%. Areva and Mitsubishi will supply four Atmea 1 reactors.

Construction of the plant is expected to start in 2017, once an environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been approved.

The Sinop plant will be Turkey's second nuclear power plant – the first is to be built at Akkuyu with Russia's Rosatom. Turkey's ministry of environment and urban planning late last year approved the EIA that Russian-owned JSC Akkuyu NPP submitted for that project. Construction work is expected to begin on the first of Akkuyu's four 1200 MWe Gidropress-designed AES-2006 VVER pressurized water reactors this year or next. The plant is being financed by Russia under a build-own-operate model, under an intergovernmental agreement signed by Turkey and Russia in 2010.

A third plant is to be built at a yet-to-be decided site with China's SNPTC and USA-based Westinghouse. In November, EUAS signed an exclusivity agreement for a four-unit plant that will use SNPTC's CAP 1400 technology.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News