Turkey’s Law No: 5710 the Law Concerning the Construction and Operation of Nuclear Power Plants (“Law”) entered into force on 9 November 2007 as the first legislation in nuclear energy market of Turkey. The law generally sets out the energy plan and policy, the procedures and principles for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants and the sale of energy generated from those plants.
Following the Law, the Russian and Turkish governments signed an agreement on 12 May 2010 for construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant consisting of four power units of NPP-2006 project with VVER-1200 reactors of a total capacity of 4.800 MW in Akkuyu, Mersin. As per the requirements of the cooperation agreement between two governments, a new company called Akkuyu Nuclear JSC (Akkuyu Nükleer Anonim Şirketi) was established on 13 December 2011, and the foundation of the offshore hydraulic engineering structures of the plant was laid on 14 May 2015.
Meanwhile, the Turkish government has proceeded with preparatory work for the construction of a second nuclear power plant in Sinop on the Black Sea coast of the country, and accepted the proposal from a consortium led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Areva, with Itochu, with total capacity of about 4800 MWe. The Turkish and Japanese governments entered into an agreement for “exclusive negotiating rights to build a nuclear power plant” in October 2013 which was ratified by the Turkish parliament in March 2015.
