Türkiye aims to be self-sufficient in all areas of the nuclear industry in the next 30 years

Recently at an industry meeting, Mr. Salih Sari, Head of Department for Nuclear Infrastructure Development from the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources gave an assessment on Türkiye’s nuclear power programme. Mr. Salih Sari is an Advisory Board member of Türkiye Nuclear Business Platform

“To achieve carbon neutrality goal, we aim to increase share of nuclear energy in generation mix to 11.1% in 2035 and 29.3% in 2053. We must install more than 20 GWe of nuclear power capacity. To have this capacity, we need a nuclear investment of more than 100 billions USD over next three decades. National nuclear power plan includes at least 16 large scale reactors by 2053, and deployment of SMRs.

We consider that SMRs can appeal to a wider range of investors and offer high added value business opportunities for domestic industry with their unique features such as easier financing, site flexibility, non-electrical applications, factory manufacturing, modularity and serial production. Three criteria are important for deployment of SMRs in the country: Licensable, commerciality and localizable. We are currently studying on development of business model and legal framework as well as site selection for SMRs.

Utilization of nuclear energy is our country’s 60-years dream. On April 27, 2023, we left behind a very important step in our country's nuclear journey. Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant has officially gained nuclear facility status with delivery of first fresh nuclear fuel assemblies to the plant site at that date. In this way, our country has taken its place in the league of countries with nuclear power. We aim to generate electricity from the first reactor unit of the power plant next year. With the commissioning of the other units by the end of 2027, we will be among the top 10 countries having the most nuclear power.

For further large-scale nuclear power plants, we are in talks with China, South Korea and Russia. In addition to these, we are in close contact with US, British and French SMR companies.

Nuclear power plants will bring dynamism to our industry and will make significant contributions to our industry's jumping to a higher league.

We have set a localization target of 6.5 billion USD in Akkuyu project. We have reached a localization of 4.3 billion USD, or 47 percent. In addition, we aim to gradually increase this rate in other nuclear power plant projects and eventually to reach the point of self-sufficiency in all areas of the nuclear industry in the next 30 years.”