Chennai: The much awaited event for the Indian nuclear establishment, the first unit at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) and India’s 21st reactor, began the nuclear fission process last night, officials of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) said.
“At 23.05, the first reactor attained criticality and all the parameters are normal,” a jubilant R S Sundar, site director of KNPP, told IANS over phone.
According to him, sustained nuclear reaction has been achieved and all parameters are as per expectations.
“After a long time, the mood here is good,” he added.
Top officials of the Indian nuclear establishment, including R K Sinha, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and secretary, department of atomic energy (DAE), and
K C Purohit, chairman and managing director of NPCIL among others, are at Kudankulam to see the first of the two Russian-made units attain criticality in a smooth manner.
Earlier speaking to IANS, Purohit said the process towards criticality was proceeding smoothly as per the procedure laid down.
India’s atomic power plant operator, NPCIL is setting up two 1,000 MW reactors with Russian technology and equipment at Kudankulam, around 650km from Chennai.
The over Rs170bn project, which generated severe protests from the locals, has started generating heat and steam from the 163 uranium fuel bundles loaded in the reactor.
The reactor was loaded with fuel assemblies containing about 80 tonnes of uranium oxide.
On July 11 night, armed with the AERB’s clearance, the KNPP started its journey towards attaining criticality.
According to officials, several low power tests will be carried out in order to verify that the reactor characteristics conform to design objectives.
If the reports are satisfactory, then the AERB will give its clearance for the next stage, which is phase-wise increase in reactor power level.
At the first stage, the plant will be synchronised with the southern grid when power generation touches 400 MW. That is expected to happen in 30-45 days. After regulatory clearances, the power generation will be increased gradually to 50 percent, 75 percent, 90 percent and finally 100 percent.
When that happens, the total installed nuclear power capacity of the country will go up to 5,780MW. IANS
