The plant was linked to Bushehr’s power grid on September 4 last year, when it first started producing electricity at 60 megawatts of its 1,000-megawatt capacity.
The power plant, which navigated numerous setbacks and took 40 years to complete, reached 100% capacity at 6:47 p.m. on August 30, according to ASE.
The German company Siemens began work on the power plant in 1975 but, after the Revolution, Germany joined American sanctions in the 1980s against Iran, forcing Siemens to halt work. In the Iran-Iraq war of 1984-88, the site sustained damages as a result of Iraqi air strikes.
ASE took over the job in 1998 but was faced with an immediate technical challenge: the facility that Siemens had built was too small for Russian equipment and the 12,000 tons of German nuclear equipment was not compatible with Russian technology. ASE had to expand the facility and rework the German equipment to make it cross-compatible.
Bushehr is one of Iran’s several nuclear facilities, but it is not among the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA’s top concerns about Iranian unclear program because its spent fuel rods are taken back to Russia, diminishing concerns that Iran might use them to generate weapons-grade uranium.
Emboldened by the success of Bushehr, Iran has announced that it plans to build a second power generation unit in Bushehr, but it is unclear if any foreign country is expected to work on it. Russian authorities say they have not yet been contacted.
A recent Iranian lawsuit against Russia about an arms deal has strained ties. Russia recently threatened that if the suit isn’t withdraw, Theran “will have to sort out its nuclear issues i the international arena on its own.