Bushehr 1st reactor reaches full capacity

Reactor number one of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran has reached its full capacity after a scheduled fuel reload and planned maintenance, an affiliated company of the Russian contractor of the facility says.

The announcement was made on Tuesday by NIAEP-ASE, a joint company formed by the Nizhny Novgorod Engineering Company Atomenergoproekt and the Russian contractor of the Bushehr power plant Atomstroyexport, reported Russian ITAR TASS News Agency.

According to the report, a total of 54 fuel assemblies were reloaded after 300 effective power days. Iran is yet to confirm the report.

In late June, the director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said Iran had completed the new process of loading fuel into the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

Ali Akbar Salehi said on June 24 that the plant had been connected to the country’s national grid at 50 percent nominal capacity after undergoing technical tests.

The initial construction of the Bushehr facility began in 1975 by German companies, but the work was halted following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

After signing a deal on the construction of nuclear plants in 1992, Tehran and Moscow reached an agreement in 1995 to complete Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, but the project was delayed several times due to a number of technical and financial problems.

The plant became officially operational and was connected to Iran’s national grid in September 2011, generating electricity at 40-percent capacity.

In September 2013, Iran officially took over from Russia the first unit of its first 1,000-megawatt nuclear power station for two years.

In March, Russia’s Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation said that Tehran and Moscow were negotiating the construction of a second unit at the Bushehr plant.