Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev said on Friday 4 April that the Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) will be the largest nuclear construction project in the world when it is finished in 2030 in terms of geographical extent.
“This is the biggest construction site in Africa and, obviously, an unprecedented nuclear project with four units currently being built simultaneously; plus, the site itself has potential to double capacity,” Likhachev said at the AtomSkills professional skills tournament in Yekaterinburg.
The head of Rosatom told TASS that the number of workers on the project could reach around 40,000 within a year. He said the workforce will first grow from 25,000 to 30,000 as construction moves forward.
Likhachev also noted that the project involves a significant level of local participation, with the majority of construction being handled by Egyptian companies.
He confirmed that all four units with a capacity of 1,200 MW are being built according to schedule and as outlined in the contracts with the first reactor vessel planned to be installed in November.
Likhachev also mentioned that the four units use VVER-1200 water-water reactors, which are part of the advanced Generation III+ design and meet top international safety standards. These reactors are already in operation at the Leningrad and Novovoronezh nuclear power plants in Russia, and the Ostrovets plant in Belarus.
Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) and the Russian company Rosatom began working on the Dabaa project, located in the Matrouh governorate in northwestern Egypt in 2015. Dabaa is the first nuclear power plant to be built in the country.
Once finished, the plant is expected to generate around 37 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, which will cover about 10 percent of Egypt’s total energy needs. It is planned to reach 30 percent completion in 2025.
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