Iran pursuing construction of two more units in Bushehr nuclear plant, says nuclear chief

Iran’s nuclear chief said the country is after a threefold rise in its nuclear power generation capacity.

News ID: 5729

Date: 08 January 2025 - 13:27

TABNAK, Jan 08: Iran is pursuing the construction of the second and third units of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, said Director of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami.

The AEOI was established 50 years ago, he said, adding, “despite five decades of activity; we have not yet taken certain paths and we have countless paths ahead.”

“In recent years, Iran has been subjected to numerous political pressures in the international arena because we have entered the forbidden zone of new technologies which were dominated by the global hegemony system.”

Iran plans to build nuclear power plants on the southern coast of the country and in the provinces of Bushehr, Khuzestan, Hormozgan, and Sistan and Baluchestan, as well as on the northern coasts such as Golestan province to generate 20.000 MW nuclear power by 2042.

The Bushehr facility sits 17 kilometers southeast of the city of Bushehr along the Persian Gulf coasts in southern Iran.

It started operating in 2011 and reached its full capacity the following year.

Rosatom, Russia's state atomic energy corporation, started site preparation of the two new units of the power plant with a combined capacity of 2100 MW in September 2016. On March 14, 2017, construction formally started. Phases 2 and 3 are scheduled to be completed in coming years.

In November 2019, the concrete-casting operation of phase 2 was launched in a ceremony attended by the then Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) chief Ali Akbar Salehi, a number of state and provincial officials, parliamentarians, and manager of Russian companies active in the site.