Egyptian nuclear regulator OKs construction of the country’s third nuclear reactor

The Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) has issued the construction licence for the third reactor (Unit 3) of the country’s four-reactor nuclear power plant (NPP) at El Dabaa, “World Nuclear News” has reported. El Dabaa will be the country’s first NPP and is located on the Mediterranean coast, some 320 km north west of Cairo. (Egypt currently operates one 22 MWt capacity research reactor.) El Dabaa is being developed and will be operated by the country’s Nuclear Power Plant Authority (NPPA). Its reactors will be to the Russian State-owned nuclear energy group Rosatom’s VVER-1200 design, already in use at Russia’s Leningrad and Novovoronezh NPPs and at Belarus’ Ostrovets NPP.