The UAE's state nuclear company is moving ahead with plans to build its first nuclear power plant, saying it has filed a construction license application covering the project's first two reactors.

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation announced the filing of the roughly 9,000-page regulatory application Monday — a year after it awarded a South Korean consortium led by Korea Electric Power Corp. the $20 billion contract for the project.

The application to the UAE's Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation is based largely on previous work done for reactors in South Korea that will serve as a reference for the Emirati plants. ENEC says that should ensure that its plants are "essentially the same" as the Korean reactors, which have been granted licenses by regulators in that country.

"We believe this license application demonstrates that the technology for our proposed power plant is safe, that the plant can be built to the highest possible standards, and that the proposed site is appropriate for the power plant," ENEC Chief Executive Mohammed al-Hammadi said in a statement.

ENEC plans to build the Gulf Arab state's first reactors at Braka, a sparsely populated site on the Persian Gulf coast near the border with Saudi Arabia. It aims to have the first reactor running in 2017.