LONDON: EDF and Nawah Energy Company have signed a long-term service agreement for the UAE’s first nuclear power plant.
Nawah is a unit of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), the company that will operate and maintain the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant that is currently under construction in Abu Dhabi.
The Barakah plant, which is currently preparing for operations of the first of its four 1400 MW units, will be the the first nuclear energy plant in the Arab World.
The agreement means that EDF will provide Nawah with services in a number of areas including operational safety, radiation protection, fuel-cycle management and environmental monitoring.
“With this agreement, EDF will be strengthening its position in the UAE’s low-carbon energy sector, thereby reasserting the goal of its CAP 2030 strategy, which is to triple its business volumes outside of Europe by 2030,” said Dominique Miniere, EDF’s senior executive vice president in charge of nuclear and thermal power.
Construction of the Barakah plant began in July 2012 and the overall construction progress for the four units is now more than 90 percent, ENEC said in a statement. The first unit was completed earlier this year.
