The power generation at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project’s first reactor, which was resynchronized with the southern grid on Thursday night, has been stabilised at 200 MWe even as the engineers are closely monitoring the thermal efficiency of the plant and other allied sections.
After the reactor was resynchronized at 9.43 p.m. on Thursday, generation of power increased steadily up to 280 MWe. However, the output was stabilised at 200 MWe on Friday. “We’re constantly monitoring the thermal efficiency of the vital components. Hopefully, we’ll be able to move up to 300 MWe within next 10 days as the performance of the reactor is so encouraging,” KKNPP Site Director R.S. Sundar told The Hindu .
If everything goes well and as planned, the reactor’s power generation will be increased to 500 MWe within a month following mandatory manual stoppage of the turbine before taking the 1,000 MWe reactor to its 50 per cent capacity. When the turbine is stopped before 500 MWe generation, a range of mandatory tests jointly stipulated by the Indian and Russian engineers will be conducted again and the readings be submitted to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board online for its instant approval.
The KKNPP’s first reactor, on its synchronization with the southern grid with 200 MWe power, has become the project proponent Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited’s 20th reactor in operation in the country.
On Saturday, all these 20 reactors collectively generated 4,695 MWe. Tarapur 1 – 163 MWe; Tarapur 2 – 162 MWe, Tarapur 3 – 540 MWe; Tarapur 4 – 540 MWe, Rajasthan 2 – 202 MWe; Rajasthan 3 – 222 MWe; Rajasthan 4 – 231 MWe; Rajasthan 5 – 234 MWe; Rajasthan 6 – 236 MWe. Chennai 1 – 168 MWe; Chennai 2 – 166 MWe; Narora 1 – 183 MWe; Narora 2 – 156 MWe; Kaiga 1 – 224; Kaiga 2 – 217 MWe; Kakrapara 1 – 214 MWe; Kakrapara 2 – 202 MWe; Kakrapara 3 – 216 MWe; Kakrapara 4 – 219 MWe and Kudankulam 1 – 200 MWe, sources said.
