Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 26 /Trend M. Moezzi/
Starting early next year, Iran's electricity network will get up to 1,000 megawatts (MW) of power generated by nuclear energy, Fars news agency reported the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization as saying.
Iran is already getting 700 MW of electricity from its nuclear plant. After testing is finished at 75 percent capacity, 1,000 will be sent to the country's electricity grid, said Fereydoun Abbasi.
The U.S and EU have worked to impose increasingly tougher sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program. The West's measures are part of an effort to make Iran answer questions about its nuclear work which it says is peaceful and civilian in nature while the U.S. and its allies contend it is not.
The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant was officially launched on September 12 and started by generating electricity at 40 percent of its capacity. The 1,000-megawatt plant, located southeast of the city of Bushehr along the Persian Gulf, had been already connected to the country's national power grid with the power of 60 MW on September 3, 2011.
It reached the capacity of 190 MW on September 27, and a day later it improved its capacity to 300 MW. The plant gained 50 percent of its nominal power on October 7 as it reached the capacity of 420 MW.
Initial construction of the facility began in 1975 by German companies, but the work was stopped following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In 1995, Iran and Russia reached an agreement to complete the project. But power generation was delayed several times due to a number of technical and financial problems.