JOIN USKNPP Unit I begins commercial ops
After several hitches, the much awaited commercial operations of the 1,000 mw Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant’s (KNPP) Unit I commenced from Wednesday.
The KNPP is India’s first pressurised water reactor belonging to the light water reactor category built in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu at a cost of more than Rs 17,000 crore. The unit attained criticality, which is the beginning of the fission process, in July 2013.
“KNPP Unit I started commercial operation at midnight of December 31, 2014,” KNPP Site Director R S Sundar told Deccan Herald.
He said the plant has been operated for 5,266 hours so far during the trial period. It also generated 3,350 million units of electricity, which was supplied to the southern grid since October 2013.
Though power production was suspended due to a technical snag in the turbine since September 2014, the electricity generation resumed by mid December after undertaking several repair works.
“During the trial run, the electricity was supplied at the rate of about Re 1 per unit. However, since the commercial production has started, now the power rate will be about Rs 4 per unit,” he said.
According to the power allocation made by the Central Electricity Authority, Tamil Nadu will get the lion share of 562.50 mw followed by Karnataka, which will receive 221 mw.
Kerala will be allocated 133 mw while Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry will acquire a share of 50 mw and 33.50 mw respectively. Asked about allocation for the newly formed Telangana, the KNPP site director said, “We have so far not received any information.”
However, sources from the KNPP said the present allocation made to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Puducherry was done before the formation of Telangana.
On the status of Unit II of KNPP, Sundar said: “As more than 90 per cent of work has been completed in the unit, we have already approached the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to start the hot-run process, before the unit attains criticality. We are expecting to get its reply very shortly.”
The construction works on the third and fourth unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, for which India has signed an agreement with Russia recently, has commenced. “Third and fourth units will be ready by March 2016,” Sundar said, adding that since we have learnt many lessons during operations of the first unit, it will be easy for us in constructing the remaining reactors at a short period of time.”
Russia and India signed an agreement for building the third and fourth units of the KNPP at a cost of Rs 33,000 crore. A general framework agreement was signed between the NPCIL with representatives of Russian-based Rosatom.