The scheduled fine-tuning of the turbine section of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project’s second reactor began on Wednesday after power generation was stopped.
After the second reactor attained criticality on August 10, it was synchronised with the southern grid on August 29 to transmit power. Maintaining the quantum of power generated in the second reactor’s turbine between 280 – 290 MWe for a few days, it was reduced gradually before the shutdown.
“After fine-tuning the performance of the turbine as mandated by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board [AERB], power generation will be resumed in the externally stopped turbine in the next few days,” said Site Director, KKNPP, R.S. Sundar.
Engineers of KKNPP, under the supervision of Russian experts and the AERB officials, will evaluate the performance of the turbine, valves, pipes carrying steam and other associated sections of the second reactor and fine-tune the equipment, if required.
Power generation
Generation of power in the second reactor will be raised to 250 MWe, 500 MWe, 750 MWe, 900 MWe and then 1,000 MWe in stages after the ongoing mandatory tests.
At every stage, various tests will be conducted and the technical parameters verified as mandated by the AERB.
Based on the results of the tests at each stage and AERB clearances, subsequent stages will be reached to take the VVER reactor constructed with Russian technical assistance to its maximum capacity of 1,000 MWe.
