Stage-II nuclear programme to go commercial this year

Other 5 new reactors, are expected to add 4,300-Mw capacity by the end of 2017

India is set to begin commercial operations of stage-II nuclear programme by commissioning a 500-Mw plutonium-based prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu.

“We are constructing a reactor, prototype fast breeder reactor, 500-Mw, at Kalpakkam, and this is expected to become operational somewhere this year," SK Malhotra, head of public awareness division, department of Atomic Energy (DAE), told mediapersons at the Nuclear Fuel Complex facility here today.

Malhotra said the other five new nuclear reactors, which are currently in various stages of construction, were expected to add 4,300-Mw capacity by the end of 2017, and take the total installed capacity above 10,000-Mw. The DAE operates 21 nuclear reactors, mostly-uranium based, with an installed capacity of 5,780-Mw.

The DAE-controlled Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) chairman N Sai Baba said NFC was establishing a 500-tonne capacity uranium plant at Kota in Rajasthan with an investment of Rs 2,400 crore to meet the fuel requirements.

He said NFC had achieved a record production of 1252.30 million tonne pressurised heavy water reactor (PHWR) fuel bundles in 2014-15, as against 961.023 mt in 2013-14. The milestone was possible due to several initiatives, including deploying automation in manufacturing processes at its facilities.

“There is no place in NFC where there is manual labour involved. May be hardly 1 per cent is there, and that too we are working on how to make it completely automated. The productivity and material recovery had been improved in a big way,” he said.

He said they would set up facilities based on the fuel requirement of Nuclear Power Corporation of India. “NPCIL is having an ambitious plan of setting up 16 reactors of 700-Mw each in the coming years, and we have to start three years before them and manufacture fuel well in time,” said Sai Baba.