By Dalga Khatinoglu

Russia says it has completed construction of Bushehr nuclear power plant, and it eyes construction of new nuclear plants in the Islamic Republic.

Russian Tass agency quoted a source at state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom on May 17 that it intends to start engineering of Bushehr-2 nuclear power plant in Iran by 2016 year-end, after endorsement of parameters by the customer.

Construction of Iran's first nuclear power plant, Buhsher, lasted over 15 years and became operational in 2011. However, according to the latest annual report of Iran's Energy Ministry, the plant operated with 28.3 percent of its nominal capacity during last fiscal year (ended on March 21).

There is no official statistics about the current situation of 1000-megawatts Bushehr power plant, but it generated about 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity during the last fiscal year, sharing around 0.9 percent in the country's total electricity generation.

Meanwhile, the director of Bushehr NPP announced on April 10 that the plant will produce six billion kWh of electricity following the recent fuel change.

Tass reported that the construction site for the new nuclear power units in Iran may start in the next two years.

The construction of the second stage of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran is estimated at approximately $11 billion, Alexander Novak, the Russian Energy Minister, said last October.

Novak also said that Russia and Iran are considering the possibility of financing joint projects in the medium term in the amount of $35-40 billion.

In November 2014, Tehran and Moscow struck a deal to build eight more nuclear power plants in Iran.

In accordance with the 20-year perspective document, atomic energy should account for 10 percent of Iran's electricity production, which means nine more power plants are needed by then, said Behrooz Kamalvandi, spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran in April.

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