6 May (NucNet): Japan and Turkey have signed an agreement that could lead to the construction of Turkey’s second nuclear power station with four Atmea1 reactor units, a design developed by Areva-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) joint venture Atmea.
Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe signed the agreement in the Turkish capital Ankara on 3 May 2013.
The Turkish government said in a statement that the agreement gives “exclusive negotiating rights” to a MHI-GDF Suez consortium to build a nuclear power plant in the Black Sea province of Sinop.
French energy company GDF Suez said in a statement that it, MHI, Japan’s Itochu and Turkish utility EUAS are part of the consortium.
Worth 22 billion US dollars (16 billion euros), the proposed Sinop plant would have four reactor units each of 1,100 megawatts, the statement said.
Turkey said it had held “lengthy talks” with Canada, South Korea and China before deciding on the Japanese-French consortium.
The Atmea1 unit is a mid-sized Generation III+ pressurised water reactor of 1,100 megawatts.
The reactor is primarily intended for export to countries where the grid is not compatible with more powerful units, such as Areva’s 1,600 MW European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR). The Atmea1 reactor is “perfectly suited” to the requirements of many countries that want to develop or include nuclear power in their energy mix, GDF Suez said.
In May 2012, Russia and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement for cooperation on the construction and operation of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant at Akkuyu on the Mediterranean coast. The plan is to build four 1,200-megawatt Generation III+ NPP 2006 pressurised water reactor units.
Turkey also said in a statement it intends to build a third nuclear power plant and intends to generate 15 percent of its power needs from nuclear by 2030.
Atmea1 technical details and key data are online:
www.atmea-sas.com/ATMEA/liblocal/docs/ATMEA1%20Brochure.pdf
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