Turkish heavy lift and engineered transport provider Hareket has handled a turbo generator stator for the Akkuyu nuclear power plant.
Measuring 12 m long and weighing 462 tonnes, the unit had to be transported from the temporary storage area to the reactor building. Hareket deployed 24 axle lines of SPMTs for the job.
In addition, the company’s engineering calculations led to the design and manufacture of beams and columns to support the handling of the turbo stator generator. Initially, it was lifted to a height of 18 m using a strand jack system and then moved 25 m on walking rails fixed to the ground.
It was then delivered to the main foundation of the 4.8 MW nuclear plant, currently under construction on the Mediterranean coast at Mersin.
As reported in HLPFI’s January/February edition of the magazine, the first of the plant’s four long-delayed reactors is scheduled to be put into service by the end of 2024. Energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar said that Rosatom, the Russian nuclear specialist, will complete work at the nuclear facility so that the first reactor can start operating by October 29.
Nuclear prospects
Further still, speaking at the 67th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Bayraktar said Türkiye plans to add over 20 GW of nuclear energy capacity to its energy mix by the end of 2050 – 7.2 GW of which should be installed by the end of 2035. Both large- scale developments and small modular reactors (SMR) are under consideration.
“We have been following the developments of SMR, and we would like to include them in our energy mix,” Bayraktar said. Speaking in October, he said that significant progress has been achieved in talks with China over the construction of a second nuclear power plant in the Thrace region. “We want to strike an agreement with China in a few months. If we cannot come to an agreement, Türkiye needs to look at other options to generate 20,000 MW of nuclear electricity,” he said. A third project is being considered for the northern Sinop province.
