Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant

location

Coordinates

8 ° 10 '6 " N , 77 ° 42' 45" E Coordinates: 8 ° 10 '6 " N , 77 ° 42' 45" E

Country:

India

Data

Owner:

Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd.

Operator:

Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd.

Project start:

1998

Commercial operation:

2014

Active reactors (gross):

2 (2000 MW)

Reactors under construction (gross):

2 (2000 MW)

Energy fed in since commissioning:

0.290 GWh

Website:

npcil.nic.in

Was standing:

June 13, 2014

The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation .

The Kudankulam nuclear power plant (also called Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant - KKNPP or KNPP) is located in Kudankulam in the state of Tamil Nadu , Tirunelveli district, directly on the sea not far from the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent.

Construction and operation

While most Indian nuclear power plants use their own heavy water moderated pressurized water reactors (PHWR), the power plant in Kudankulam has Russian reactors of the type WWER-1000/412 ( AES-92 ) with a net capacity of 917 megawatts each . The version of a Russian standard reactor type VVER-1000/392 or VVER-1000/320 specially adapted for India has the designation VVER-1000/412. This version of the reactor was equipped with western control systems and received more passive safety devices.

A seawater desalination by reverse osmosis (seawater reverse osmosis = SWRO) is connected to the plant's water supply . The small town of Anu-Vijay about 7 km from the power plant, where the employees are housed, is also supplied.

Construction of the first two reactors began in 2002. In mid-August 2012, loading of the first reactor and start-up to criticality were approved. The criticality required for proper operation was reached on July 13, 2013, and the grid connection was made on October 22, 2013. The delays can be explained by protests by the local population and necessary security measures by the police. In November 2015, the operating company did not dare to make a forecast for the commissioning of the second block. On July 10, 2016, criticality was reached in the second block. Network synchronization took place on August 29, 2016, 30 to 45 days later.

The first unit, which went into operation on December 31, 2014, has been idle for at least seven months since June 24, 2015. In the years 2015 to 2018, Reactor 1 only produced an average of 56.3% of the time.

history

According to the Indo-Russian contract of November 6, 2001, a price of 3 billion US dollars was agreed for the first two reactor blocks, half of which is financed through a loan. The fuel is supplied by the Russian company TVEL for 400 million US dollars. The reprocessing takes place in India.

The reactors were of the corporation Izhora Works ( OMZ ) in St. Petersburg built. From there, the reactors, each weighing 350 tons, were transported by ship to the construction site by the sea.

On July 18, 2012, the financing agreement for a third and fourth reactor block worth 3.5 billion US dollars was signed.

On October 15, 2016, construction work began on units Kudankulam-3 and -4.

Data of the reactor blocks

The Kudankulam nuclear power plant has a total of two units , more are planned:

Reactor block	Reactor type	Electric net power	Electric gross power	Thermal performance	start of building	Network synchronization	Commercialization of essential operation
Kudankulam-1	WWER-1000/412	917 MW	1000 MW	3000 MW	03/31/2002	10/22/2013	December 31, 2014
Kudankulam-2	WWER-1000/412	917 MW	1000 MW	3000 MW	07/04/2002	08/29/2016	March 31, 2017
Kudankulam-3	WWER-1000/412	917 MW	1000 MW	3000 MW	06/29/2017
Kudankulam-4	WWER-1000/412	917 MW	1000 MW	3000 MW