The shipment of steam generators for the first unit of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) has begun, the reactor's manufacturer Atomenergomash announced on Monday.
Atommash, the Volgodonsk branch of AEM-technology, which operates alongside Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation's (Rosatom) machine-building division of Atomenergomash, completed the loading process for the four steam generators.
According to the company's statement, in the coming days, the generators, weighing 355 tons each, will go on a long voyage, sailing 3,000 kilometers en route to the Akkuyu NPP construction site in Mersin in southern Turkey.
'Delivery of products from Atommash to the customer is carried out in a combined way,' the statement read.
First, the products will be delivered by road to the port of the Tsimlyansk reservoir in southern Russia's Rostov Oblast. The four steam generators will then be loaded onto a barge using a 650-ton gantry crane and shipped to Turkey.
An intergovernmental agreement between Turkey and Russia was signed in May 2010 for the Akkuyu NPP, which will house four VVER-1200 power units with a total installed capacity of 4,800 megawatts.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin presided over the plant's groundbreaking ceremony held on April 3, 2018, via a videoconference call from Ankara.
The first reactor of the plant is planned to be operational in 2023.
By Firdevs Yuksel
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr