The Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation (Rosatom) officials have said that the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be connected to the national grid in early August, Mehr news agency quoted Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Reza Sajjadi as saying.
Sajjadi said in his recent meeting with Rosatom officials they said that the Bushehr plant will be ready to be launched and connected to the national gird in early August.
Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko will also attend the inauguration ceremony of the nuclear plant, the ambassador told the Fars news agency in an interview published on Saturday.
The power plant first was launched in August 2010 as engineers loaded 163 fuel rods into the reactor under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
On January 28, then Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Director Ali Akbar Salehi announced that the Bushehr power plant will be connected to the national grid by February 20. He also said that the plant would be able to work at full capacity by mid-April. But in February, Iran unloaded fuel from the reactor due to safety concerns.
In March, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in a telephone conversation with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that Russia would make every effort to make the Bushehr nuclear power plant fully operational at the planned time.
Later Iran announced that the Iranian engineers in cooperation with Russian experts have managed to complete the reloading of the reactor.
The plant, which is located near the port of Bushehr on the coast of the Persian Gulf, will produce 1000 megawatts of electricity once it becomes fully operational.