Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Currently, about 3-4 per cent of total power generation capacity in the country comes from nuclear power produced by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) with an installed generation capacity of 4,120 Mw. The sole producer of nuclear power has aimed to increase the nuclear generation capacity to 20,000 Mw by the year 2020.
By 2012, NPCIL is planning to add another 3,160 Mw of capacity: 2,000 Mw from two units of the Kudankulum Atomic Power Project in southern Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli region, 440 Mw from two units of the RAPP, one 220 Mw plant of KAPP in Karnataka and an addition of 500 Mw to the Kalpakkam atomic plant in Tamil Nadu, near Chennai (presently 440 Mw capacity).
RAPP’s current capacity is 740 Mw, using domestic uranium. The two new units, of 220 Mw each will account for around 14 per cent of the 3,160 Mw of nuclear power generation capacity in the pipeline. Kaiga is presently generating 500 Mw; the new unit is an additional one of 220 Mw. Both the projects will run on imported fuel.
The Indian government has a contract with TVEL, a joint stock company of the Russian Federation, for long-term supply of 2,000 tonnes of natural uranium. In another contract, Areva, the French energy major, has also committed to supply 300 tonnes of the nuclear fuel. Both contracts were signed in January.
Fuel for the Kudankulam power project has already been sourced from Russia and the newly available uranium would be partly fed to the power plants of Rajasthan and Kaiga.
Source: AsiaEnergy Blogspot
