Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project Unit 3 reaches significant commissioning milestone

In a boost to country’s nuclear power target, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) Saturday announced that the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project, Unit-3 has achieved a significant commissioning milestone.

This project is being constructed in the district of Timnelveli in Tamil Nadu in technical cooperation with Russian Federation under the framework of Inter-Governmental Agreement.

The NPCIL said the successful commencement of “Spillage to Open Reactor”, an important phase in the nuclear power project commissioning, involves flushing of safety system and Main Coolant Pipelines (MCP) using light water, to ensure cleanliness of the systems for further commissioning activities.

The flushing operation is carried out by operating the safety system pumps from Main Control Room, in a controlled, sequential manner to maintain system integrity and to achieve the required technical parameters towards clean conditions as per design requirements.

The milestone signifies the start of individual functional testing of primary system equipment and piping in accordance with design requirements, marking a critical step towards commissioning of the plant.

B.C.Pathak, Chairman & Managing Director, NPCIL inaugurated the commencement of ‘Spillage to Open Reactor’, in the presence of Mr M. Novikov, Director for Indian Projects, Atomstroyexport (ASE) and other senior officials.

Presently, Units-1&2 (2 X 1000 MW) are operating at the site and have so far generated about 121 Billion Units (BUs) of clean electricity, thereby avoiding release of about 104 Million Tonnes of CO2 equivalent into the environment.
Unit-4 (1000 MW) is at an advance stage of construction. Further, Units-5&6 (2 X 1000 MW) are at different stages of construction and are planned to be commissioned progressively. Upon completion of these projects, the Kudankulam site will have a total installed capacity of 6000 MW.

India has 8.8GW of installed nuclear power capacity across 7 sites, contributing to 2% of the country’s electricity capacity. The government aims to scale nuclear capacity to 100 GW by 2047 (5% share).