Iran's first nuclear power plant connected to grid

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's first nuclear power plant has started adding electricity to the national grid, media reported on Sunday, coming on stream on Saturday night after years of delays.

"The Bushehr nuclear power plant joined the national grid on Saturday at 23:29 (7:59 p.m. British time) with the power of around 60 megawatts," the ISNA news agency reported.

Hamid-Khadem Qaemi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organisation, told Iran's Arabic language TV station al-Alam the plant would be officially inaugurated by September 12, by which time it would be operating at 40 percent capacity.

The agency was not immediately available to comment.

The $1-billion (617-million pound), 1,000-megawatt plant on the Gulf coast is the first of what Iran hopes will become a network of nuclear facilities that will reduce its reliance on its abundant fossil fuels.

Started by Germany's Siemens in the 1970s before Iran's Islamic revolution, the project was later taken over by Russian engineers and has since suffered a series of delays.

The West fears Iran's nuclear programme is aimed at making atomic weapons, which Tehran denies.

Experts say firing up the Bushehr plant will not bring Iran any closer to building a nuclear bomb because Russia will supply the enriched uranium for the reactor and take away spent fuel that could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium.

(Reporting by Mitra Amiri and Parisa Hafezi; Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)