PM Modi, Russian Prez Vladimir Putin to jointly dedicate Kudankulam Nuclear Plant
NEW DELHI: In Tamil Nadu, the first unit of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant will be dedicated to nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalaithaa jointly through video conferencing today.
In the function to be held at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Corporation Chairman SK Sharma, Russian company Atomstroy Export President Limareenko and site Director Sundar will be attending.The first unit of Kudankulam nuclear power plant attained criticality in July 2013. Till now more than 10,800 million units of power has been generated from the first unit.
The 1000 Mega watt Kudankulam nuclear power plant was built with Russian expertise following a pact between the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet leader Mikahil Gorbachev in November 1988.The first unit was synchronized with southern power grid on October 22 in 2013and commercial power generation started by the end of December 2014.Kudankulam Site director Sundar told AIR that AERB experts are monitoring the second unit and is expected to be synchronized with southern grid by this month end.
The event was greeted with thunderous applause from the employees, technocrats and members of the Russian specialist group, exchange of greetings and warm hugs.As the top brass of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited including its Chairman and Managing Director S.K. Sharma witnessed the milestone event from the control room, the nuclear fission started in the second reactor at the scheduled time.Once the reactor starts generating 400 MWe of power, possibly within 45 days from the date of criticality, it is likely to be connected to the grid. Generation of power will be raised to 500 MWe, 750 MWe, 900 MWe and 1,000 MWe in stages.
At every stage, various tests will be conducted and the technical parameters verified as mandated by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). Based on the results of the tests at each stage and with AERB clearances, which will take two to three weeks, subsequent stages will be reached to take the VVER reactor constructed with Russian technical assistance to its maximum capacity of 1,000 MWe.
Loading of 163 enriched uranium fuel assemblies into the light water coolant reactor began on May 11 and was completed on May 19.The KKNPP submitted its reports to the AERB and got the nod for criticality after the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change experts, inspected the second unit and submitted their report to the Supreme Court.
Though it was originally planned to complete the construction of the first two reactors within 60 months from the ‘first pouring of concrete’ on March 31, 2002, it took 11 years for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, the proponent of the project, to take the first reactor to the criticality stage, owing to various reasons including delay in supply of compoTamil Nadu is expected to get a minimum of 462.50 MWe from the second unit.
Having successfully accomplished the mission by operationalising the first two reactors, the KKNPP will now pay more attention for commencing the work on the construction of the third and fourth reactors, each with a capacity of 1,000 MWe, at an outlay of Rs. 39,500 crore.
