Rosatom said the contract was awarded by Titan 2 IC Ictas Insaat, a Turkish-Russian joint venture established for the construction of Akkuyu.
The contract will see VNIPIET develop technical documentation, and supply and install refuelling machines at each Akkuyu unit. Rosatom said the equipment will be manufactured in Russia.
The Akkuyu nuclear power station, the first commercial nuclear power station in Turkey, is being built near Mersin on the country’s southern Mediterranean coast under an intergovernmental contract signed with Russia in 2010. It will have four Generation III+ VVER-1200 units, with the first expected to come online in 2023 and a further unit starting every year afterwards.
Russia says it is the first nuclear power station project to be built using the build-own-operate (BOO) model. The total estimated cost of the project stands at $20bn.
Under the BOO model, the plant supplier, in this case Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, is also the investor or co-investor and owner or co-owner of the facility, gaining returns on its investments during operation from electricity sales.
