Turkey clears Akkuyu unit 2 for commissioning tests before fuel loading

Turkey’s nuclear regulator has opened the next phase at Akkuyu unit 2, clearing the second reactor for commissioning tests before any fuel goes into the core. That is the point where a 4.8 GW project stops looking like a civil works megaproject and starts behaving like a nuclear plant, with systems checked, adjusted and prepared for startup.

The permit came from the Nükleer Düzenleme Kurumu, Turkey’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency, after Akkuyu Nuclear Inc filed its application in May 2025. The paperwork ran to more than 22,000 pages, a good measure of how documentation-heavy modern reactor commissioning has become. The regulator said the package covered commissioning stages, technological operations and training for operating personnel, and it authorized the company to carry out the tests under its rules.

For Akkuyu, the move matters because it shifts unit 2 deeper into the staged path that leads to fuel loading and power generation. Commissioning work now can include system-by-system checks, equipment adjustments, integrated testing and readiness work for the operating crew. After that comes the fuel-load gate, then startup testing, then the long climb toward first electricity and synchronization with the grid.

The milestone also lines up with the way unit 1 has already been brought forward. Unit 1 received its own commissioning permit in December 2023, after nuclear fuel was delivered to the site in April 2023. Rosatom later said commissioning work on unit 1 began in April 2024, with hot and cold testing planned using dummy fuel before the later fuel-load phase.

Unit 2 has been stacking up hardware milestones while the paperwork advanced. The 437-tonne turbine-generator stator was lifted into place in January, and in March the main part of the polar crane was installed under the inner containment dome at a height of 38.5 metres. Sergey Butskikh, Akkuyu CEO, said the latest permit confirmed compliance with regulatory requirements and would let the team begin preparing for commissioning operations while construction and testing proceed in parallel.

Akkuyu is Rosatom’s first build-own-operate nuclear project, developed under the 2010 Russia-Turkey intergovernmental agreement on the Mediterranean coast in Mersin province. When all four VVER-1200 units are running, the plant is expected to supply about 10% of Turkey’s electricity needs. That is the real economic prize here: faster progress at Akkuyu would give Ankara a bigger low-carbon baseload source and trim exposure to imported gas, which still carries a heavy share of Turkey’s power risk. With all four units targeted for operation by the end of 2028, unit 2’s permit is another step in the countdown to Turkey becoming a functioning nuclear-power state.