The third and fourth nuclear reactors with their containment domes (excessive left) at Kakrapar in Surat, Gujarat. Their cooling towers are seen.
| Photo Credit: NPCIL
The fourth unit of the Kakrapar Atomic Power Project (KAPP-4) in Gujarat, with 700 MWe capability, began managed fission chain response and thus turned vital at 1.17 am on December 17. Kakrapar is located about 80 km from Surat.
The 700 MWe items are the biggest indigenous nuclear energy reactors to be constructed by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), a public sector enterprise of the Department of Atomic Energy.
The 700-MWe unit-3 of KAPP began producing industrial electrical energy from August 30.
These reactors are pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), which use pure uranium as gas and heavy water as coolant and moderator.
The NPCIL is already working indigenous PHWRs with 220 MWe and 540 MWe capability at different amenities.
The reactor’s first criticality was ascertained after it met all of the situations set out by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), India’s nuclear security watchdog.
B.S. Pathak, Chairman and Managing Director of NPCIL, was current within the station’s management room with the positioning workforce when KAPP-4 was commissioned, per an NPCIL press launch. He congratulated the NPCIL workers and referred to as the criticality of KAPP-4, occurring inside six months of economic operation of unit-3, a major achievement.
It demonstrated the energy of NPCIL in all aspects of nuclear energy era – the design, development, commissioning, and operation of reactors, Mr. Pathak stated.
Indian industries equipped the gear and executed the contract for these two reactors, in keeping with the NPCIL press launch. The Kakrapar Atomic Power Station already has two working PHWRs with a capability of 220 MWe every, referred to as KAPS-1 and -2.
Earlier, on December 13, Mr. Pathak informed The Hindu that the indigenously constructed 700 MWe reactors are amongst “the best reactors of this PHWR category”. They have many superior security options, together with amongst others a steel-lining from the ground to the wall and a passive decay warmth elimination system to chill the gas core, he added.
The NPCIL presently operates 23 nuclear electrical energy reactors with a complete capability of seven,480 MWe. It has 9 items, together with KAPP-4, below development whereas 10 extra reactors, with a complete capability of seven,000 MWe, are within the pre-project section.
