The construction of the second power unit of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran has begun with the assistance of Russian specialists, Mehr news agency reported.
The construction of power units for the Iranian nuclear facility is regarded as the biggest Russian-Iranian joint project. In November 2014, the two nations signed an agreement on the development of the second and the third units. The construction of Unit 2 began on 10 September 2016. The implementation of the project is expected to take at least 10 years.
Unit 1 of the Bushehr plant has delivered several tens of billions of kilowatt-hours of electricity to Iran’s energy system and allowed Iran to prevent the release of several tens of millions of tons of greenhouse gases.
Bushehr NPP is a unique facility, which has no analogues in the world. The construction of this first nuclear power plant in the Middle East was started in 1974 by the German concern Kraftwerk Union AG (Siemens / KWU). In 1980, the German government joined the US sanctions imposed against Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and construction was discontinued.
Russia was the only country that agreed to help Iran complete Bushehr. In August 1992, the governments of both countries signed an agreement on the construction of the nuclear plant, and in January 1995 a contract was signed to complete the construction of its first power unit. Despite difficult conditions, Russian specialists managed to "fit" domestic equipment into the construction, made according to the specifications of the initial German project, while adding around 12 thousand tons of German equipment.
