Russia has announced launching the production of the reactor pressure vessel for the first unit at Egypt’s El-Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant (NPP).
Russia’s state-owned Rosatom is currently implementing Egypt’s first nuclear power plant project near the town of El-Dabaa.
The plant consists of four third-generation reactors with a total capacity of 4,800 megawatts, the first of which is planned to enter service by 2026.
Egypt expects that the NPP will operate at full capacity by 2030.
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, the Russian Director of the Dabaa nuclear project, Grigory Sosnin, said that the nuclear reactor technology selected for this project makes it one of the world’s safest and most technologically advanced nuclear plants.
He affirmed that the NPP will contribute significantly to reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
General Director of the Russian major nuclear power corporation Rosatom Alexey Likhachev gave the green light to the production on Sunday.
He stressed that the NPP that will operate in Egypt will not only provide the country with green and sustainable energy for the next 100 years, but it's also considered the birth of an entire sector, a whole industry and an absolutely new level of quality of knowledge and quality of life for the African country.
“That is why today we are launching not only a reactor, but we are launching a new life, a new image of this life in Egypt,” Likhachev said.
In early June, Chairman of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority of Egypt (NPPA) Dr. Amgad Al-Wakeel headed a delegation to Leningrad NPP and Russian engineering factories manufacturing equipment for nuclear power plants within the framework of implementation of Rosatom State Corporation overseas projects.
The delegation attended the ceremony of production launch of blanks for the reactor pressure vessel of Unit 1 of El-Dabaa NPP.
It took place at the industrial site in Kolpino (St. Petersburg), where various equipment for NPPs is manufactured at Rosatom’s order.
Egypt and Rosatom had signed on December 11, 2017, several documents to put into force the commercial contracts for the construction of the El-Dabaa plant.
According to the contracts, Rosatom will not only build El-Dabaa NPP on the Mediterranean coast, but it will also conduct personnel training and will assist its Egyptian partners in the operation and maintenance of the plant for the first ten years of its operation.
