Akkuyu NPP: project overview

The flagship project of nuclear cooperation between Russia and Turkey is the Akkuyu NPP, Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, located in Mersin Province on the Mediterranean coast.

The intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the nuclear power plant was signed in 2010. The plant will consist of four VVER-1200 units with a total capacity of 4,800 MW. Once commissioned, it is expected to meet up to 10% of Turkey’s electricity demand.

Preparatory work at the site began in 2013. In April 2018, the first concrete was poured for Unit 1.

At the start of construction in 2018, the cost of the Akkuyu project was estimated at $22 billion. By June 2024, Rosatom’s CEO had revised the estimate to $24–25 billion at current prices.

This is Rosatom’s first project implemented under the BOO (build-own-operate) model. Under this model, the Russian state corporation—through its subsidiary Akkuyu Nuclear JSC—acts as the main investor, owner (initially with a 100% stake, which is not expected to fall below 51% in the future), and operator of the plant, planning to recoup its investment through electricity sales.

Under the agreement, the Turkish side has committed to purchasing up to half of the electricity generated by the nuclear plant (70% of the electricity generated by the first two units and 30% of that generated by the other two) for the first 15 years of operation at a fixed price of $0.1235 per kWh.

The agreement also stipulates that up to 40% of the work will be carried out by Turkish companies, and that Turkish engineers will account for at least 30% of the technical staff during the plant’s commissioning.

From 2019, the general contractor for the entire Akkuyu NPP project was Titan 2 Ic İçtaş İnşaat Anonim Şirketi (T2IC), a joint venture established by the Russian company Concern Titan-2 and the Turkish company Ic İçtaş İnşaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret Anonim Şirketi (IC Ictas).

In July 2022, the contract with T2IC was terminated due to “numerous violations during construction,” according to a Rosatom corporate publication. TSM Enerji İnşaat Sanayi Limited Şirketi (TSM) was appointed as the new general contractor.

Later, in September 2022, T2IC rejoined the project. As a result, it was decided that TSM would be responsible for the construction of the first unit and associated facilities, while T2IC would handle the construction of the other three units.

The project makes extensive use of Western equipment. For example, the turbine generator equipment for all four units will be supplied by GE Steam Power. The contract for the supply of turbines was signed in 2017 with Turbine Technologies AAEM, a joint venture between Atomenergomash and GE. However, under a subcontract, all major turbine generator equipment is manufactured at GE’s plant in Belfort, France. The project also included plans to use electrical equipment supplied by Siemens.

Delays and sanctions

Before the war in 2022, the first unit of the Akkuyu NPP was expected to be commissioned in 2023, in time for the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic. However, this did not happen. After the first wave of Western sanctions against Russia, the Russian side denied that the sanctions had any impact on the project. Throughout 2023, Turkey’s Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar continued to express hope that the first unit would be commissioned by October 29, 2024, Turkey’s Republic Day. But this did not happen either.

In 2024, Russian officials began to acknowledge delays, citing sanctions and the refusal of several Western suppliers—such as Siemens—to deliver equipment among the causes. At the same time, it was still maintained that the project was proceeding on schedule. In March 2024, Bayraktar said that despite some sanctions-related issues, which he did not specify, the first unit was still expected to be commissioned in 2024.

Later, in May 2024, Denis Sezemin, Director of Construction and Production Organization at Akkuyu Nuclear, announced that the first unit was expected to be commissioned in April 2025. He emphasized that this delay did not violate the terms of the intergovernmental agreement, which gives Rosatom seven years to begin commercial electricity generation. The construction license for the first unit was issued in April 2018, so commissioning in 2025 remained within the agreed timeline.

By 2025, however, the scale of the problems had become increasingly apparent, with recurring reports of problems involving financing and payments, equipment supplies, and labor relations at the construction site. By the end of the year, the Akkuyu NPP construction project had become a prominent example of the impact of sanctions pressure on Rosatom’s large international nuclear projects. The key bottleneck was financial transactions and cross-border transfers.

In January 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported, and Rosatom confirmed, that the US Department of Justice had previously frozen $2 billion transferred from Russia to JPMorgan accounts in connection with the financing of the Akkuyu NPP.

In May 2025, Turkish media reported that the project had encountered a significant delay in receiving approximately $7 billion in expected financing, slowing work on Units 2, 3, and 4. With funding limited, the operating company Akkuyu Nuclear JSC concentrated all available resources on completing Unit 1, with the aim of commissioning it in 2026.

In July 2025, media reports indicated that protests were taking place at the Akkuyu NPP construction site, with workers demonstrating over wages that had gone unpaid for months. According to these reports, protesters clashed with the local gendarmerie, which used batons, tear gas, and water cannons to disperse the demonstrations.

According to the newspaper Cumhuriyet, the wage delays and mass layoffs were linked to TSM Enerji İnşaat Sanayi Limited Şirketi, the contractor responsible for completing Unit 1 of the Akkuyu NPP. According to lawyers, the company cited a lack of funds and shifted financial and labor risks onto the workers themselves.

Rosatom directly linked the payment delays to the blocked funds and the actions of “unfriendly countries,” thereby confirming the connection between the project’s labor-related problems and sanctions-related constraints.

One of the solutions to the project’s financing difficulties was a mechanism under which Turkey’s payments for Russian gas could be used to finance the construction of the Akkuyu NPP. In September 2025, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that testing of the mechanism had been completed.

Under the proposed arrangement, Turkey’s state energy company BOTAŞ would transfer payments for Russian gas directly to an account held by Akkuyu Nükleer A.Ş., the Turkish-Russian joint venture registered in Ankara and responsible for the project. The mechanism effectively represented an attempt to institutionalize a workaround for restrictions on bank transfers, which remained one of the key obstacles to the project.

In March 2026, Likhachev stated that the first unit at Akkuyu was expected to be commissioned by December 2026.