While excavation of site for the third and fourth reactors of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) will be taken up before December-end after getting the mandatory approval from Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), the ‘first pouring of concrete’ will happen in 2016, R.S. Sundar, Site Director, KKNPP has said.
Talking to reporters here on Thursday, Mr. Sundar, after inaugurating the two-day expo at Anna University’s Tirunelveli Regional Office, said power generation in the first reactor of KKNPP would be resumed in September-end as the removal of spent enriched uranium fuel from the reactor and the associated maintenance was actively going on, as part of the scheduled annual outage. Since this exercise involved highly ticklish technical aspects and these technical procedures could not be by-passed, it consumed more time than anticipated.
At the same time, 35 dummy fuel assemblies had been removed from the second reactor following the successful completion of ‘hot run’. On getting AERB’s approval, the enriched uranium fuel would be loaded in the reactor for power generation which would commence before December-end.
Responding to a query, Mr. Sundar said the spent fuel would be stored on KKNPP premises itself in a highly secured and reliable structure. “I’ll take you (the reporters) to the structure once the storage of spent fuel there is over,” he said.
Asked whether the State government had sent any formal appeal to the KKNPP administration requesting it to resume power generation in the first unit during September itself, he replied in negative. “We haven’t received any such appeal from the Tamil Nadu Government”.
“The ‘first pouring of concrete’ will happen in 2016”
