Unit-1 of Kaiga shut down for maintenance after record-breaking run

Karwar: The unit-1 of Kaiga Nuclear Power Station in Uttara Kannada district, which holds the record for the longest continuous run, will be shut down for relaying pipelines and other maintenance work for at least a year.

The Kaiga nuclear plant, which has four units (reactors), has the installed capacity of 880 MWs. The plant shuts down units for maintenance, on a regular basis, for a short time though. But this time around unit-1 will be closed for a longer period.

The unit-1 of the Kaiga plant, with an installed capacity of 220 MW, was commissioned in 1999. The unit unceasingly generated power using heavy water reactor technology for 26 years. It also holds the record for continuous operation for 962 days in 2019, eclipsing the previous record of 940 days held by Heysham II plant in England.    

“There is a need to replace more than 300 pipes laid to transport uranium bundles in the unit-1. The pipes lose their strength due to very high temperatures. Hence, they should be replaced with new pipes once every 25 to 30 years. This is a routine process,” a senior official of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) told
DH.

“Apart from replacing the pipes, the engineers also look into any defects in the equipment used in the reactor. The process to fix pipes and defects, if any, would take at least one year,” the NPCIL officer said.