Asharq Al Awsat

Egypt on Thursday has unveiled the start date for trial operation at its first nuclear power plant in the city of Dabaa on the Mediterranean coast, in cooperation with Russia.
Amjad Al-Wakeel Chairman of Egypt's Nuclear Power Plants Authority, said on Thursday that the trial operation of the first reactor at the Dabaa plant will commence by the second half of 2027.
The commercial operation of the first reactor is set to start in September 2028, to be followed by the operation of the remaining units, El-Wakeel noted. The Dabaa plant consists of four nuclear reactors with a total power-generation capacity of 4,800 megawatts (MW), 1,200 MW per reactor.

Speaking on the sidelines of the two-day Atom Expo 2024 forum in Russia’s Sochi, Al-Wakeel affirmed that the project will provide 7.2 to 7.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually after its full operation.

The Egyptian official said one of the agreements concluded with the Russian side stipulates the construction of a special storage facility for storing used nuclear fuel for up to 60 years.

In 2015, Cairo signed a contract with the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, to build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant at a cost of $25 billion. In December 2017, President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin witnessed in Cairo the signing of a document to kickstart the Dabaa nuclear power plant.

Last January, the two presidents inaugurated the construction of a new unit at Egypt's Dabaa nuclear power plant via video link.