Turkey aims to start test production of electricity at the first unit of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant by the end of this year, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said.
Bayraktar said reactor testing is ongoing and that about 2,000 tests need to be carried out to prepare the plant for launch.
Bayraktar said work to launch the first reactor is continuing at full speed, and that both the Russian side and Turkey are concentrating all their efforts on completing it and starting test electricity production by the end of the year.
Russian-built reactor
Akkuyu is being built by the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom and will be Turkey's first nuclear power plant. The plant will have four units with Russian-designed VVER-1200 generation 3+ reactors, each with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts.
Rosatom's director general, Alexei Likhachev, has previously said the launch of Akkuyu's first unit is planned for this autumn.
