Power generation in Unit 1 of Kundankulam Nuclear Power Plant is progressing smoothly after plugging of the steam pipe leakage and would touch its 1,000 MW capacity, a senior plant official said today.
Power generation at the Indo-Russian Joint Venture project in Tirunelveli district was stopped on February 16 due to leakage in a steam pipe. It resumed on Monday after rectification of the fault.
"It (power generation) is being taken up gradually and is progressing smoothly now. As of last night power generated was about 440 MW. We will be increasing it in phases," a senior KNPP official, requesting anonymity, told PTI.
He declined to give a specific timeframe when asked how long it would take to reach 1,000 MW power generation, but said, "it will happen.... We are taking it up in phases".
Scientists had earlier resumed power generation at the unit on January 21, the day it attained criticality after successful completion of re-fuelling shutdown and maintenance activities.
While commissioning of the second unit is at an advanced stage, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has given its nod for taking up site excavation work for the third and fourth units, he said.
Tamil Nadu has been allocated 563 MW from the 1,000 MW capacity of the first unit.
KNPP started commercial operations on December 31, 2014 and was shut down for maintenance from June 24 last year.
"After an agreement for signing six units was signed last
month, a change in the calculations altogether has to be done. We had signed a pre-engineering agreement with Larsen and Toubro for two reactors as a part of the indigenisation process. Now even that will change and so will the cost factor. A fresh proposal will be submitted by EDF to NPCIL in June-July.
"Before that the two sides will have to agree on different techno-commercial variables including the rate of interest at which the loan will be offered to the NPCIL for building the reactor," another French government official said.
Even eight years after the signing of the nuclear cooperation deal between France and India, there is yet to be any visible progress on the ground.
After the Indo-French nuclear cooperation agreement in 2008, NPCIL, with the help of AREVA, was to construct six reactors of 1650 MW each.
Upon completion, JNPP will produce the maximum amount of energy among the nuclear power plants in the country.
