Bushehr nuclear plant to reach full capacity soon

The Russian contractor in charge of the construction of Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr announced that the plant will reach its full power generation capacity by the end of this month. In a statement, Russia's Atomstroyexport said that Bushehr nuclear power plant will reach its full capacity on May 23. The power plant is currently generating electricity at 75% of its nominal capacity of 1000 megawatts, it said. Atomstroyexport pointed to the test conducted on the equipment of the plant on May 1, saying that the power plant successfully generated electricity at 90 percent of its capacity during the test process. Late in April, a senior Iranian official announced that the Russian contractor will deliver full control of the facility to Iran by the end of autumn. "The Russian contractor will definitely deliver the power plant (to the Iranian side) by the end of this autumn," Governor-General of Iran's Southern Bushehr province Mohammad Hossein Jahanbakhsh said. Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereidoun Abbasi announced earlier that the power plant is generating and sending 940 megawatts of electricity to the national power grid. "940 MW of nuclear-generated electricity has been sent to the national grid," Abbasi said, adding that the Bushehr nuclear power plant had produced 730MW of electricity since February and Iranian experts succeeded in boosting its capacity to 940MW now. He reiterated that the progress was made after Iranian experts and engineers managed to conduct numerous experimental tests based on the power plants' standards. Iran held a ceremony in September 2011 to mark the preliminary launch of the Bushehr plant. The facility operates under the full supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).