BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 9. Iran attracted more than 1.8 billion euros for the construction of 2nd and 3rd units of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant since the start of the last Iranian year (March 21, 2022) until October 8, 2023, Vice President of Iran and Chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, Trend reports.
He made the remark last night at a ceremony marking the beginning of concreting the reactor walls of Unit 2 of Bushehr NPP.
Eslami noted that the current Iranian government (which came to power in August 2021) is taking significant steps to speed up the construction and operation of Unit 2 and Unit 3 of the Bushehr NPP. He said that it is possible to increase the construction pace by 2.5 times, considering the available resources.
Eslami also said that another 600 million euros are expected to be raised for the construction of these units by the end of the current Iranian year (March 19, 2024).
“If we accelerate the operational work, we can complete and use these units in less than 5 years,” he added.
According to Eslami, a total of 2,300 people are working on the construction of these two units. The number of workers is planned to be increased in the coming months. All the companies, contractors, engineers and workers involved in the construction of these two units are Iranian citizens.
The Unit 1 of the Bushehr NPP was launched in 2011 by the Russian Atomic Company (ROSATOM). In 2013, ROSATOM handed over the operation of the unit to an Iranian company. The unit has been generating 1,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year since 2013.
The construction of Unit 2 and Unit 3 of Bushehr NPP started in 2017 on an area of 50 hectares. Each of these units will have a capacity to generate 1,057 megawatts of electricity when they are launch. With these two units in operation, 10 million barrels of crude oil or 1.6 billion cubic meters of gas will be saved per year, and 7 million tons of polluting gases will be prevented from entering the environment.
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