TEHRAN- Hadi Beiginejad, a senior member of the Parliament’s Energy Committee, said on Sunday that Iran has started construction of phases 2 and 3 of the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

“The second and third phases of the Bushehr power plant development have been signed with the Russians under 10-year and 8-year contracts,” Fars quoted Beiginejad as saying.
 
The foundation of the second phase of the plant is under construction and the leveling works on the area considered for phase 3 has also began, he explained.

Beiginejad emphasized the need for Iran to diversify its power generation resources, and called on the Parliament and the government to accelerate construction of phases 2 and 3 of the nuclear plant.

The Bushehr facility sits 17 kilometers southeast of the city of Bushehr along the Persian Gulf coasts in southern Iran.

It started operating in 2011 and reached its full capacity the following year.

Rosatom, Russia's state atomic energy corporation, started site preparation of the two new units of the power plant with a combined capacity of 2100 MW in September 2016. On March 14, 2017, construction formally started. Phases 2 and 3 are scheduled to be completed in 2024 and 2026 respectively.

In November 2019, the concrete-casting operation of phase 2 was launched in a ceremony attended by Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) chief Ali Akbar Salehi, a number of state and provincial officials, parliamentarians, and manager of Russian companies active in the site. 
 
“Cementing process of the nuclear reactor of the Bushehr power plant’s phase II is one of the key processes and an important event in the site by which we have taken a giant stride towards development of nuclear power plants in the country,” Mahmoud Jafari, the executive manager for the new phases of the Bushehr nuclear plant, told reporters on the sidelines of the ceremony.