ANKARA, September 15. /TASS/. Turkey expects the first nuclear power plant in the republic that is being constructed by Russia’s state corporation Rosatom, to start operating next year, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told a briefing.
"If we look at the figure that I gave you, 60 gigawatt of renewable sources of energy by 2035. Today we have 22,000 megawatt that we set up in the past 12-15 years at the expense of solar and wind energy. We have to triple this capacity within 12 years for future needs. We also have to boost the capacity of connections with neighboring countries <…> Moreover, if you set up some base generation, nuclear, for example, and we hope that Akkuyu NPP will start operating next year, it will add 9-10 terawatt-hours of base energy from clean sources. Consequently, higher baseload means more renewable sources of energy that may be integrated into the grid," he stressed.
Akkuyu is the first nuclear power plant being built in Turkey. It is fully financed by the Russian side as of now. Rosatom holds a majority stake in Akkuyu Nuclear, the company responsible for designing, building, maintaining, operating and decommissioning of the plant.