Iran’s first nuclear power plant connected to grid
Iran’s first nuclear power plant has started adding electricity to the national grid, media reported on Sunday, coming on stream on Saturday night after years of delays.
“The Bushehr nuclear power plant joined the national grid on Saturday at 23:29 (1859 GMT) with the power of around 60 megawatts,” the ISNA news agency reported.
Hamid-Khadem Qaemi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization, told Iran’s Arabic language TV station al-Alam the plant would be officially inaugurated by September 12, by which time it would be operating at 40 percent capacity.
The agency was not immediately available to comment.
The $1-billion, 1,000-megawatt plant on the Gulf coast is the first of what Iran hopes will become a network of nuclear facilities that will reduce its reliance on its abundant fossil fuels.
Started by Germany’s Siemens in the 1970s before Iran’s Islamic revolution, the project was later taken over by Russian engineers and has since suffered a series of delays.