About 2,400 tonnes of reinforcement were laid in the reactor building foundation and more than 17,000 cubic metres of concrete was poured. Rosatom said the weight of the finished reactor building will be about 470,000 tonnes, which means the the foundation will hold a mass equal to double weight of the world’s largest ocean cruise liner.
Work has also been completed on the foundation plate of the turbine building, with 3,200 tonnes of rebar laid. The turbine building will house systems and equipment related to power delivery including the turbine unit, a deaerator, feed pumps and auxiliary equipment.
The $20bn 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 a contract signed with Russia in 2010.
The station 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.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, construction of Akkuyu-1 began in April 2018 and of Akkuyu-2 in April 2020.
