ENEC announced the successful commencement of the reactor of Unit 4 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant

Unit 4 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, or Barakah Plant, is the largest single source of clean electricity in the United Arab Emirates and the wider Arab world. The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) announced on Friday that its operating and maintenance subsidiary, Nawah Energy Company, had successfully started up the reactor.

Unit 4 of the Barakah Plant has started to produce heat through nuclear fission, which is used to power a steam turbine to produce electricity. 

Unit 4 will connect to the national electrical grid in the upcoming weeks, and it will then go through a testing period to progressively raise its power production until it reaches maximum capacity.

Unit 4 will bring the Barakah Plant's total capacity to 5,600 megawatts of zero-carbon emission power, meeting 25% of the UAE's electricity consumption once testing is over and commercial operations get off. Additionally, the Plant will help the nation fulfil its 25% share of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which is the country's pledge to reduce carbon emissions in order to fulfil the targets set out in the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement.

Since 2020, the operating staff at Barakah have been starting up a new unit year, making it the first multiunit operational nuclear facility in the Arab world. The four APR-1400 pressurised water reactors of the Barakah Plant have a maximum output of 1,400 megawatts of clean power apiece. 

Because institutional knowledge and experience are applied to each successive unit, each unit has been set up more effectively than the preceding one. The fact that Unit 3 was completed four months ahead of schedule for Unit 2 and five months ahead of schedule for Unit 1 shows how much it helps to construct numerous units over a longer period of time.