The Hindu : NPCIL to set up 6 more units

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 09, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

NPCIL to set up 6 more units

By Our Staff Reporter

TIRUCHI DEC. 8. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) proposed to set up six more new units in the country at an outlay of Rs. 37,000 crores and the Planning Commission had already sanctioned Rs. 1,500 crores equipment for these proposed units, its Chairman cum Managing Director, V. K. Chaturvedi, has said. Speaking to presspersons at the BHEL here on Saturday, Dr. Chaturvedi said that while four new units would be of 700 MWe pressurised heavy water reactors, the other two would be 1,000 MWe fresh light water reactors.

He said the NCPIL planned to invest over Rs. 100,000 crores on the new nuclear power projects (NPP) in the next 15 years. Nuclear power plants with a total installed capacity of 2,700 Mwe were in operation in the country. The new NPP for the production of another 4,000 MWe were under various stages of construction.

Referring to India's achievement in the production of nuclear power, Dr. Chaturvedi said, the country ranked fourth with the installed capacity for the production of 1.20 lakh MWe, behind the U.S. (5.50 lakh MWe), China (2.20 lakh MWe) and Russia (1.25 lakh MWe).

Today, nuclear power moderately supplemented the power needs of the country, but had a greater role to play in the coming years.

For a country such as India with a large population, the per capita production was very meagre compared to the other countries. The country's demand for nuclear power was going to be much more in the future. Since it had been projected that an installed capacity of 300,000 MWe would be required to support a minimum quality of life for all the people, the NPCIL had plans for a capacity addition of 10,000 MWe per annum.

The NPCIL achieved an all time high average capacity factor of 88 per cent this year, against the target of 87 per cent. It had managed 82.4 per cent capacity factor in 2000-2001 and 85 per cent capacity factor last year. "We hope to achieve 90 per cent by the year end, for which we are increasing by one per cent every month."

Referring to the power plants under construction, Dr. Chaturvedi said they would be commissioned one by one starting with the Tarapur 540 MWe unit in 2005. The Koodankulam NPP would be last one to be commissioned in 2008.

The Atomic Energy Act, 1962 has authorised the Government of India to deal with nuclear power installations. An amendment to this Act favouring joint ventures was on the anvil.

The response from Tamil Nadu for the procurement of power from the proposed Koodankulam plant had been very encouraging. The State had come forward to procure 1,200 MWe of power from Koodankulam, followed by Kerala about 250 MWe and Pondicherry another 50 MWe. There had been no outstanding to the NPCIL from the southern power grid.

This was in sharp contrast to some of the north Indian States, which had huge arrears to the NPCIL. Of the total outstanding of Rs. 3,000 crores, the Madhya Pradesh alone had to pay Rs. 1,300 crores.

Now, Jammu and Kashmir had also joined the list, he said.

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