AtkinsRéalis to Study Six-Reactor Candu Plant for Turkey
Canada’s AtkinsRéalis and Turkey’s state-owned nuclear developer TÜNAŞ signed a memorandum of agreement on the sidelines of COP31 in Antalya, under which AtkinsRéalis’s Candu Energy unit will carry out feasibility and front-end engineering design (FEED) studies for a potential 4.5 GW nuclear plant built around as many as six Candu reactors. The studies, due within months, will cover the proposed site, infrastructure needs, environmental factors, financing options and how much of the supply chain could be built inside Turkey — a step short of a construction commitment, but one both companies are framing as a path toward a future investment decision.
A third option alongside Russian and prospective Chinese technology
If it goes ahead, the Candu plant would be Turkey’s third nuclear project and its first not tied to Russia. Akkuyu, under construction in Mersin province, is being built and will be owned and operated by Russia’s Rosatom under a build-own-operate model; its first of four VVER-1200 units is targeted to start supplying the grid by the end of 2026, with the full 4,800 MWe plant expected to cover roughly a tenth of Turkey’s electricity demand once complete. A second plant is planned at Sinop, and Ankara has separately been in talks with China over a third site in Thrace. Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has said Turkey is weighing partners from both Canada and South Korea for its next reactors and expects to settle on a shortlist within months — a signal that Ankara is deliberately keeping its options open rather than committing to a single supplier for its post-Akkuyu fleet, as it did with Rosatom.
Candu’s pitch rests on a different fuel cycle. The reactors use heavy water as both moderator and coolant and run on natural, unenriched uranium — removing the need for the enrichment services that currently tie Akkuyu’s fuel supply to Rosatom. For a country trying to diversify its nuclear supply chain rather than deepen a single dependency, that is a meaningful technical argument, independent of the commercial terms still to be negotiated.
What AtkinsRéalis and Turkey said
AtkinsRéalis President and CEO Ian Edwards called the agreement a reflection of “the federal government’s ambitions to strengthen international partnerships,” framing it as part of a broader push to extend Canada’s nuclear export reach. Joe St Julian, the company’s President of Nuclear, was more specific about what comes after the feasibility work: a site-specific proposal with its own costing and financial framework, to be developed together with partners, which he said would “create the momentum needed for projects to get to a final investment decision.” St Julian also argued that Candu offers more scope for local manufacturing than competing reactor designs, which AtkinsRéalis says would support Turkish jobs and supply-chain capacity rather than simply importing a finished plant.
On financing, AtkinsRéalis indicated it would contribute roughly 35–40% of the plant’s overall capital cost, with the remainder to come from Turkey — a split that still leaves the bulk of the funding, and the risk, with Ankara. No contract value has been disclosed, and the site for the proposed plant has not been named; both are expected to emerge from the feasibility study due by around the middle of next year.
Part of a wider Candu push
Turkey is not the only government AtkinsRéalis is courting with Candu reactors. The company signed a similar memorandum with Indiana utility interests in late October, under which Candu Energy would study up to 6 GW of Canadian-built reactors for the US state — a near-identical structure of feasibility work ahead of any binding commitment. Turkey, for its part, signed a separate nuclear financing memorandum with South Korea earlier this month, underscoring that Ankara is running parallel conversations with multiple reactor vendors and financing partners rather than waiting on any single one.
Candu’s track record is modest in scale but long in operating history. The first 25 MWe prototype unit connected to the grid at Rolphton, Ontario, in 1962, and roughly 34 Candu units have been built worldwide since, including all 17 reactors currently operating in Canada — a fleet AtkinsRéalis says represents close to 1,000 reactor-years of combined experience. AtkinsRéalis is the technology’s original equipment manufacturer and holds the exclusive licence to build it, though the underlying intellectual property remains with the Canadian government through Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. Whether that history translates into a signed contract in Turkey will depend on a feasibility study whose site, cost and ownership structure are all still to be settled.
Sources
- World Nuclear News, “AtkinsRéalis producing study for six-unit Candu plant in Turkey,” November 12, 2026 — memorandum details, capacity, financing split, quotes from Ian Edwards and Joe St Julian, Candu background. Link
- World Nuclear News, “Strength and leak tests completed for Akkuyu 1 containment,” November 13, 2026 — Akkuyu capacity, timeline and share of Turkey’s electricity demand. Link
Illustrative image. Photo: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — source
