12 Apr (NucNet): The Turkish Cabinet has approved the forced purchase of land by state transmission grid operator TEIAS to construct a 380-kV line to carry power from the planned Akkuyu nuclear station, reports said.
According to three separate decisions announced in Turkey’s official state gazette on 10 April 2016, the approval was signed on 14 March 2016 by the country’s Cabinet, having been reviewed by the energy ministry in February.
The approval allows TEIAS to force owners to sell land along the route of the planned transmission line.
TEIAS said it has already received environmental clearance for the line, which will run westwards from the Akkuyu site to TEIAS’ existing transmission grid, but has yet to issue a tender for its construction.
Turkey has three nuclear stations in development – Akkuyu, Sinop and Ignaeda.
Akkuyu, near Mersin on the country’s southern Mediterranean coast, will be built in cooperation with Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom under a contract signed in late 2010. The station will have four 1,200 MW VVER units and is scheduled to produce power by the end of 2022.
Sinop, in northern Turkey, is being planned with an Areva-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries joint venture.
In October 2015 a Turkish minister said the site for the country’s third planned nuclear power station will be at Igneada, on the Black Sea close to the Turkey-Bulgaria border.
Turkey’s state news agency Anatolia said talks over the planned Igneada plant are continuing with Chinese companies and US company Westinghouse, and that Japanese companies have also expressed interest in the project.
In November 2015, Turkish state power company EUAS signed an agreement for exclusive talks with Westinghouse and China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation for the development of a four-reactor station at Ignaeda based on AP1000 technology.
