India fast-tracks nuclear capacity addition programme

With the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) awarding the highest-ever tender for constructing two new reactors last week, India has fast-tracked its ambitious plans to increase the installed nuclear capacity from the current 8.1 gigawatts (GW) to over 13 GW by 2029.

NPCIL, the only authorised entity to run civil nuclear reactors in India, chose Megha Engineering & Infrastructure (MEIL) as the lowest bidder for quoting ₹12,800 crore, ahead of other bidders like Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL), to construct two 700 MW reactors at Kaiga in Karnataka. Tendering was started in May and technical bids were opened in October, last year.

India’s nuclear power generation capacity will increase by around 70% in the next 5 years, Union minister Jitendra Singh recently told officials while reviewing the 100 days action plan of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) under the new Narendra Modi Government. ''Operational installed capacity of 7.48 GW will become 13.08 GW by 2029, which is over 70% increase with the addition of 7 new reactors,'' he had told the officials.

In February, two 700MW each indigenously built reactors were commissioned at Kakrapar (Kakrapar Atomic Power Station - KAPS 3 and 4) in Gujarat. With this, NPCIL's installed capacity increased to 8.1GW with 24 nuclear reactors. NPCIL aims to add 18 nuclear reactors by 2031–32, taking the total nuclear power capacity to 22.4 GW and generating an additional 13.8 GW of electricity.

The Government of India has accorded administrative approval and financial sanction for constructing 10 indigenous 700MW PHWRs in 'Fleet Mode', says NPCIL. Experts say PHWRs use heavy water (deuterium oxide D2O) as their coolant and natural or low-enriched uranium as fuel and have more safety features. The light-water reactor (LWR)s use normal water, as opposed to heavy water, as both its coolant and neutron moderator. There are three types of light-water reactors: the pressurised water reactor (PWR), the boiling water reactor (BWR), and (most designs of) the supercritical water reactor (SCWR)s.

At Rawatbhata in Rajasthan, where six units with a total capacity of 1180 MW pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) are already in operation, NPCIL is adding two more units, each with a capacity of 700 MW. Civil works are going on to set up two new PHWRs of 700 MW each capacity at Gorakhpur in Fatehabad district of Haryana. Apart from Gorakhpur and Kaiga, these fleet mode reactors will come up at Chutka Madhya Pradesh Atomic Power Project-1&2 (CMPAPP) at Mandla district in Madhya Pradesh and Mahi Banswara Rajasthan Atomic Power Project-1,2,3&4 (MBRAPP) at Banswara in Rajasthan.

At Kudankulam in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, where two Light Water Reactors (LWR) of 1000 MW each are operational, construction work is progressing to add Units 3 & 4 (each 1000 MW). In addition, pre-bidding activities are going on to add two more units of 1000 MW each (Unit 5&6). The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project is being built with technical cooperation from the Russian Federation.

Other new projects in the pipeline are Mithi Virdi in Gujarat (6 x 1000 MW) and Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh (6 X 1000 MW), which will be LWRs. Discussions have been going on for many years to set up large-sized LWRs in collaboration with France at the Jaitapur site in Maharashtra and with the USA at the Kovvada site in Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh. Though the Government of India had accorded in-principle approval for taking up pre-project activities, strong local opposition against land acquisition has been delaying most of these large projects for many years.

With long construction time and high economic costs associated with traditional nuclear reactors affecting India's nuclear programme, the Government is also planning to start Small Modular Reactors (SMR)s. These are small fission reactors with a capacity of about 300 MW or less and can be centrally manufactured at a factory and then transported to the site for installation.

India's total installed power capacity should reach above 900 GW by 2031-32 as power demand is projected to surpass 400 gigawatts (GW) by then from the earlier forecast of 384 GW, Power Secretary Pankaj Agarwal said a few days ago in Delhi. At present, India's total installed power generation capacity is about 445 GW, including 243 GW of thermal, 194 GW of renewables and 8.1 GW of nuclear capacity.