Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear plant, 90 km from Cyprus, to be operational next year, minister says

Istanbul, Turkey. Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said on Tuesday that the Akkuyu nuclear power station, on the southern coast of Mersin province and 90 kilometres from Cyprus, will be operational next year. He spoke at the Turkiye Energy Summit.

Testing and fuel loading

Bayraktar said intensive testing is under way at the site. He described it as an especially sensitive area because of nuclear safety requirements and the international conventions and agreements Turkey has signed, and said “nothing has been left to chance”. According to him, all necessary precautions have been taken.

The minister said the government intends to load the first nuclear fuel within weeks, a step he said will mark the physical startup of Akkuyu. He added: “we will be using Akkuyu electricity in our system from 2027 onwards”.

Construction and capacity

Construction at Akkuyu started in 2018. The first reactor is expected to enter service this year and the second next year. Each reactor will supply 1,114 megawatts, which is around 2.5 per cent of Turkey’s electricity consumption.

Opposition in Cyprus and beyond

The project has drawn the attention of anti-nuclear activists in Cyprus and elsewhere. Demonstrators gathered in Nicosia as early as 2017 to protest against the plans. In 2015, The Left, a European Parliament group that includes Akel, had already cautioned against the project.

The group said the plant was to be built in a seismic zone on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. It argued that this endangers mainly the population of the Mersin area, but also every country and people in the region. It also expressed support for Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot organisations that had joined forces to raise awareness in Cyprus, Turkey and abroad, with the aim of stopping construction.

Electricity link to Cyprus

Power produced at Akkuyu could be used in Cyprus only if the island were linked to Turkey by a cable. Those plans appear to have stalled, as the European network of transmission system operators for electricity (Entso-E) declined to endorse them.