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Bushehr nuke plant helps Iran to save $940M per year

Nuclear Program Materials 14 January 2015 13:12 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 14

By Umid Niayesh - Trend:

The Bushehr nuclear power plant helps Iran to save about $940 million annually, the director of the NPP, Hossein Derakhshandeh said, the Islamic Republic's official Mizan news agency reported Jan. 14.

The power plant produces about seven billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity after every fuel change, which should be done annually, Derakhshandeh said,.

He added that producing the same amount of electricity via fossil fuel costs $800 million.

Meanwhile during every fuel change about one third or 27 metric tons of the power plant's fuel should be changed which costs $60 million, he said.

The core of the Bushehr reactor is composed of 163 fuel assemblies of which 54 should be changed every year.

On the other hand, the power plant prevents environmental pollution from burning fossil fuel which helps the country to save about $200 million annually, Derakhshandeh underlined.

Bushehr NPP which was inaugurated in September 2013 has a capacity of producing 1000 megawatts of electricity. The power plant is scheduled to produce up to 5 billion megawatt hours of electricity per year, which is about 2 percent of country's total electricity production.

The facility produced 6.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity after inauguration till its temporarily shutdown in February 2013 to change about 27 metric tons of its fuel and semi-basic periodic repairs.

After the fuel change completed in June, 2013 the power plant has produced over 3 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.

Supplying the fuel of Iran's only nuclear power plant -Bushehr, is guaranteed by Russia for 10 years. Russia delivered 82 tons of nuclear fuel in 2008 and 30 more tons in May 2011 to Iran. This amount meets the Bushehr NPP's fuel needs for four years.

Follow the author on Twitter: @UmidNiayesh

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