Russia’s state-run nuclear energy corporation Rosatom has delivered the first large piece of equipment – the core catcher – for Turkey’s Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in the Mediterranean province of Mersin, the plant’s project company announced on Monday, according to Energy Reporters.
The component, which will be installed under the nuclear reactor pressure vessel, is a cone-shaped tank weighing 150 tons made of high-temperature steel, Akkuyu Nuclear JSC said in a statement. It added that the core catcher is an important component of the 3+ generation nuclear reactors’ passive safety systems.
“We have witnessed the arrival of the core catcher – an important security system equipment – to the site. The core catcher is an element designed for the third-generation nuclear power plants, including the Akkuyu NPP, which allows increasing the level of its nuclear safety,” said Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez.
“The installation of this equipment will be completed by the end of this year,” he added.
Donmez last week held a working meeting at the Akkuyu NPP construction site with the General Director of the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom Alexei Likhachev.
Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom is building Turkey’s first nuclear plant in the southern province of Mersin. The project is implemented in accordance with the intergovernmental agreement signed between Turkey and Russia in 2010. Construction of the plant started in April 2018.
