Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI), said that two additional units will be built at Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Speaking at a meeting with members of the Iranian parliament’s energy commission late Tuesday, Eslami said producing 20,000 MW of nuclear power is on the AEOI’s agenda.
The plan aims to fulfil the country’s laws and the order of the leader of the Islamic Republic to build nuclear power plants in Bushehr, Khuzestan, Khuzestan, Hormozgan, and Sistan-and-Baluchistan provinces located on Iran’s southern coast as well as the northern coast such as Golestan province.
He added that important steps have been taken to develop the nuclear industry as a driving force for various sciences and technologies.
Eslami described the Bushehr nuclear power plant as a source of great potential in energy production, saying it is pollution-free and saves 105.7 million barrels of oil. He said nuclear technology plays an important role in several industries, emphasising that it can be used to produce precision instrumentation.
The Bushehr nuclear power plant is a unique facility that has no analogues in the world. Construction of this first nuclear power plant in the Middle East was started in 1974 by the German Kraftwerk Union AG (Siemens/KWU). In 1980, the German government joined the US sanctions imposed on Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and construction was halted.
In August 1992, the governments of Russia and Iran signed an agreement on the construction of this NPP, and in January 1995, a contract was signed to complete the construction of the first unit of the plant.
The first unit of the Bushehr NPP was connected to Iran’s national power grid in September 2011. In April 2016, the unit was finally handed over to Iran for operation; this was the official completion of its construction project. As part of its obligations, Rosatom continues servicing the unit and providing it with nuclear fuel.
