Country’s first commercial nuclear station planned for Zhambyl region
A Kazakhstan government commission has met to review proposals from potential suppliers for the country’s first nuclear power station, days after reports emerged that the country had chosen a potential site for the facility.
Local press reports said the interdepartmental nuclear development commission, consisting of representatives from state bodies and organisations within the nuclear and energy sectors. had met on 25 February to review the proposals.
Proposals have been received from China National Nuclear Corporation, Russia’s Rosatom, South Korea’s Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power and EDF of France. All the proposals are for large-scale pressurised water reactor units.
Kazakhstan has designated the Zhambyl district in the south of the country as the site for its first nuclear power station, according to a government decree, reported by local media.
Reports said the decision was announced by prime minister Olzhas Bektenov, who said an approved decree confirming Zhambyl as the site took effect on 30 December 2024.
Zhambyl, also spelled Jambyl, borders Kyrgyzstan. Its main administrative centre, Taraz, is almost 500 km west of the nation’s largest city of Almaty.
Press reports in Kazakhstan said the exact location for the planned nuclear station has not been announced, but it is expected to be near the village of Ulken.
Ulken is about 350 km northwest of Almaty on the shores of Lake Balkhash in southeastern Kazakhstan.
Ulken was established in the 1980s to house workers for a planned hydroelectric power plant. That project was unfinished when the Soviet Union collapsed and high-rise apartments are the only completed constructions from the period.
In October, voters in Kazakhstan backed the construction of a nuclear power station in a referendum.
According to the Central Election Commission, 71% of participants voted in favour of the project, while 26% voted against. Voter turnout in the nation of 19 million people was about 63.66%, the data showed.
Kazakhstan is the world’s largest uranium producer, but has no commercial nuclear power plant. It has four operational research reactors that are used for fuels and materials testing.
Plans to deploy large-scale nuclear power during the Soviet era were dropped due to the availability of other energy options, although the country operated a single fast neutron reactor at the Caspian Sea site of Aktau between 1972 and 1999.
According to the International Energy Agency, Kazakhstan is a significant producer of coal, crude oil and natural gas, and a major energy exporter. While coal dominates the country’s energy mix, renewable sources of energy are a small but growing share of Kazakhstan’s electricity generation.
