)
The much-awaited synchronisation of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP's) first reactor with the power grid has happened on Tuesday morning. The development comes at a time when the Prime Minister is touring in Russia and Kudankulam, is expected to be one of the high point of discussion.
R S Sundar, site director, KNPP said, "Unit 1 synchornisation done at 2.45 a.m. on Tuesday morning, generating 75 MWe".
After synchronising and operating for around two hours, as per the schedule, the unit was taken out. Synchronising will start again on Wednesday late evening or night, to start producing electricity again. There would be some tests still carried out, but the power generation would continue.
"Presently our clearances are for up to 500 MW and then we need to have a regulatory clearance, subject to that we can increase power production further. We expect that in another two to three weeks we will reach 500 MW and then next 500 MW we have to reach in two stages, 750 MW and 1,000 MW," he added. This also has received a regulatory approval, and once the plant go to the power level cleared now and after the parameter monitoring and submission of reports to the regulators, it could take a nod from the regulator and go ahead for this stage of increase in production.
"By December we expect that we will be at full power," he said.
Though the controversy-ridden KNPP's, located on the shores of Kudankumal village in Tirunelveli district, around 700 km from Chennai, Unit 1 had achieved criticality on July 13, the synchornisation was delayed due to reasons including the fine-tuning highly intricate systems including valves in the reactor, turbine and generator sections.
Kundankulam is a 2,000-MW project comprising Unit 1 and 2, each of which will generate 1,000 MW of power. Unit 1 will generate 250 MW of power. There is a further plan – an ambitious one – to set up four more units of 1,000 MW each. Once those are ready, the Kudankulam plant will have six reactors in all, with a total capacity of 6000 MWe.
To set up the third and fourth units, talks between the governments of India and Russia are in the advanced stage.
For Unit I and II, the initial cost was estimated to be around Rs 13,171 crore, but it has gone up to Rs 17,270 crore due to the delay, rupee depreciation and certain other factors.
Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Prime Minister’s Office, V Narayanasamy earlier said that of the 2,000 MW that will be generated, Karnataka will get 442 MW, Tamil Nadu 925 MW (which includes 10% home state entitlement), Kerala 266 MW and Puducherry 67 MW. The remaining 300 MW is yet to be allocated.
Apart from the 925 MW allocated to Tamil Nadu, the Union government has decided to allocate 100 MW of the unallocated power to the state once Unit 1 becomes operational.
The reactors at Kudankulam are being built by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited and Russia’s Atomstroyexport company, a subsidiary of Rosatom (the regulatory body of the Russian nuclear complex). The Indian government signed a contract with the Soviet Union to build the plant in 1988, but construction started only in 1997 due to the political and economic upheaval in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The construction of the first two units was later halted in September 2011 following protests by villagers around the plant. Work at the plant finally resumed in March 2012. And now, it’s days away from generating energy.
