Akkuyu Unit 2 inner containment dome lifted into place in seven-hour operation

Akkuyu Unit 2’s inner containment dome was lifted into place on June 30 in a seven-hour operation. A heavy-duty crawler crane handled the lift, while more than 40 specialists tracked the operation that had been staged for months around the reactor structure.

The dome did not arrive as a single piece. It was preassembled over roughly four months from 15 sections near the reactor building. Akkuyu Nuclear JSC chief executive Sergei Butskikh described the inner containment dome installation as one of the most complex and critical tasks in reactor-building construction.

The inner containment carries the steel lining that gives the enclosure its leak-tightness, together with special concrete, while the outer containment is reinforced concrete designed to withstand external impacts. With the dome now in place, the next steps are welding it into position, reinforcing the containment, and continuing concreting work.

Turkey’s Nükleer Düzenleme Kurumu granted permission on May 7 for pre-commissioning stage works at the unit, after Akkuyu Nuclear submitted its application in May 2025 and assembled a documentation package that exceeded 22,000 pages. The dome lift followed 2026 milestones at Unit 2, including installation of the polar crane on March 25, completion of primary-circuit large-scale equipment installation on April 2, and the start of main coolant pipeline welding on June 18.

Rosatom is building four VVER-1200 units under a build-own-operate model at Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, a 4.8 GW site that Akkuyu Nuclear says will eventually supply electricity to more than 12 million consumers across more than 10 provinces of Türkiye. Unit 1 also reached milestones this month, with dummy fuel assemblies loading completed on June 9 and construction completion announced on June 23.