Turkey aiming for five nuclear power plants by 2030: ministry

Istanbul (Platts)--2Feb2011/703 am EST/1203 GMT

Turkey is aiming to have five nuclear power plants with a total of 20 reactors by 2030, a spokesman for Turkey's energy ministry told Platts late Tuesday, confirming statements made in the Turkish media by the ministry undersecretary Metin Kilci.

The spokesman said that the 20 planned reactors includes four each in Turkey's two existing planned nuclear power plants, and allowed for the construction of three more plants with four reactors each.

But he also said that as yet no plans have been approved for the three additional plants and no potential sites have been finalized.

Turkey has already finalized plans for its first nuclear power plant, a 4.8 GW plant consisting of four units to be built at Akkuyu on the country's Mediterranean coast under a deal signed last year with a consortium led by Russia's Atomstroyexport, construction of which is expected to begin in 2013.

The plant has been granted a feed-in tariff of $0.1235/KWh for two of the plants' four units for 15 years after commissioning, guaranteed by Turkey's state power trading authority TETAS.

Talks with South Korea over the construction of a second plant to be built at Sinop on Turkey's Black Sea coast broke down in November last year, with Turkey entering into a three month period of exclusive talks with Japan in December.

Under discussion is a four unit plant of 5.4 GW with a feed-in tariff guaranteed by TETAS under negotiation.

Turkey's energy minister Taner Yildiz said last month that he had been approached by a French consortium of EDF, GDF Suez and Areva which is also interested in constructing the planned Sinop plant but commented that no formal talks could begin until the exclusivity period with Japan had lapsed.

He also warned that the outcome of any talks with the French consortium could be affected by France's opposition to Turkey's position as a candidate for membership of the European Union.

--David O'Byrne, newsdesk@platts.com

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