Construction at the Rooppur nuclear power station site in Bangladesh. Photo courtesy ASE. Bangladesh’s first commercial nuclear power plant, being built in cooperation with Russia, is on schedule to be connected to the grid and begin operation as planned in 2023, an official from state nuclear corporation Rosatom told RIA Novosti.

The official was responding to comments by Bangladeshi foreign minister Abul Kalam Abdul Momen that completion of the two 1,200-MW V-392M pressurised water reactor units being built at Rooppur might be delayed.

“We expect that the first unit will be connected to the network in 2023,” the official said. “There may be some kind of deviation from the schedule, but at the moment we clearly understand that we’ll connect it to the network on time,”

He said the second unit at Rooppur, about 150 km northwest of the capital Dhaka, is scheduled to be connected to the grid in 2024.

First concrete for Rooppur-1 was poured in November 2017 and for Rooppur +-2 in July 2018.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Bangladesh, which has a population of 160 million, plans to produce 9% of its electricity from nuclear power and reduce its dependence on fossil fuels by the middle of the next decade.

Date: Saturday, 21 September 2019
Original article: nucnet.org/news/rooppur-on-schedule-for-2023-operation-says-official-9-5-2019