Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) is getting ready with expansion plans to meet the demands for fuel and reactor components for the 10 new nuclear power plants to be taken up by the Government of India within the next 12 years.
“We will be needing 3,000 metric tonnes of nuclear fuel for these plants for a total capacity of about 10,000 MW and our current capacity is about 1000 MTs from raw material to finished fuel bundles. So we will be increasing our capacities,” said Chairman & Chief Executive Dinesh Srivastava on Friday.
Since the NFC plant here is located in the midst of the city, it has been decided to scale up the upcoming ₹2,000-crore 1,000 MTs-capacity plant at Kota in Rajasthan to 2,000 MTs where the civil work is at an advanced stage. Similarly, the Zirconium Sponge plant capacity at Palayakayal near Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu will be increased from 250 MTs to 400 MTs and then onto 1,000 MTs, he said.
“We can easily increase the capacity of the Kota unit and also the Palayakayal plant to meet the demand. All the proposed new nuclear power plants are to be built on indigenous Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) design and technology of 750 MW each. These will be in addition to four earlier projects announced by the Government,” he said, in a chat with mediapersons after the 45th NFC Day celebrations held at the Dr. Homi Bhabha Convention Centre, at NFC.
The NFC, which is the only supplier of nuclear fuel, has been in the forefront of developing several new critical technologies in manufacture of fuel bundles considering the difficulty in obtaining them from abroad due to restrictions or because they are prohibitively priced.
“We have introduced automation in different aspects of manufacturing making the processes simpler and qualitative. Our focus now will be to improve our quality further without the need for checking on each and every product,” said Mr. Srivastava.
Recently, it has been able to make two new alloys ‘Super Ni and Titan 24’ which are used in several parts of the nuclear reactors to reduce the corroding power.
Director of Bhabha Atomic Energy Commission & Atomic Energy Commission K.N. Vyas and Chairman & Chief Executive of Heavy Water Board U. Kamachi Mudali extolled the contribution of the NFC towards development of the nuclear power in the country. Senior NFC officials C. Phani Babu and D. Pramanik also spoke. Awards to outstanding scientific teams were also given away on the occasion.
