An
agreement was signed between India and Russia almost 25 years ago to
build two reactors at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu state of India. The
political upheaval in Russia soon afterwords and the Soviet breakup,
put the project in Limbo. US also came up with objections, as they
felt that the project did not meet the 1992 terms of Nuclear supplies
group, for which Russia is a signatory. Eventually the construction
began, finally in 1997.A small port was built near the project later,
to transport over sized light water reactor equipments from Russia.
The materials for the project were brought in from Tuticorin port
earlier, but faced the risk of being damaged in further land
transportation.
In
2008, India began negotiations with Russia to build at this site,
additional 4 reactors of 1200 MW each, taking the total capacity of
the generating station to 6800 MW. In the same year, a memorandum of
intent was signed, under which Russia agreed to supply to India four
third generation VVER-1200 reactors of 1170 MW. The first two
reactors as per original agreement of 1988 of VVER model and with
1000 MW capacity have been built by Nuclear Power Corporation of
India Limited or NPCIL with technical help from Atomstroyexport from
Russia, who has provided all equipments including the reactor
pressure vessel, steam generators, and turbines and will supply the
fuel for the life time of the reactors. The first reactor was
scheduled for start of operation in December 2009 and the second one
in March 2010.
As the
work on reactors was nearing its completion, all hell broke loose
when thousands of protestors living in the vicinity of the plant
started an agitation to get the project shelved. There were
demonstrations, Public Interest Litigation at the Supreme court of
India against the nuclear programme. As a result, the work was
suspended on the project, when the Tamil Nadu Government asked the
federal Government to halt all operations till the protesting
agitators would be reassured, that there would be no danger to them.
In February 2012, Indian Government found out that the agitations
were in fact instigated by some American and Scandivanian NGO's, who
were found to have used foreign funds received for social and
religious purposes to fuel the protests, violating foreign exchange
regulatory rules. Finally, following a series of meetings and reports
by experts committees, the State Government of Tamil Nadu, gave its
final nod for resumption of work at Kudankulam in March 2012.
The
work resumed and gathered at fast pace. By August 2012, the main
contractor, Nuclear Power Corporation [NPCIL] submitted various
documents concerning fulfillment of all pre-requisites to the
regulatory body, The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) carried
out a detailed review of the safety analysis reports based on the
documents submitted to them. Based on this review, AERB issued its
approval on 10th August 2012 to start loading of fuel in the first
unit of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant and first approach to
criticality.
The
first reactor, having reached criticality earlier, was, synchronised
with the southern regional electrical grid on 22nd October 2013,
generating about 75MW first and then gradually notched up 160 MW. On
20th
February 2014, KNPP station director R S Sunder said at a function
that the first reactor was generating 75% of its full capacity of
1000 MW and it was expected to generate its full capacity soon. This
has not yet happened but Nuclear power corporation of India web
site says
that this would happen in May 2014.
Mr.
R.S. Sundar also said that the 1000 MW second unit is likely to
attain criticality by June 2014 and NPCIL web site mentioned above
gives the expected date of full commercial production as December
2014. This is where the things stand on today.
We
have seen above that in all 4 additional reactors were supposed to be
built at Kudankulam as per agreement signed in 2008 with Russian
help. With the first 2 reactors on way to completion during current
year, India wanted to start negotiations with Russia for supply of
next 2 ( number 3 and 4) reactors. In October 2013, it was expected
that a deal would be signed at the time of the visit of Indian prime
minister to Moscow. However talks remained deadlocked on liability
issue. Under India's Civil Liability Nuclear Damage Act 2010 (CLND),
there is a Right to Recourse Clause, under which manufacturer is
liable to pay compensation in case of any major accidents and the
Russians have been quite apprehensive over the clause.
It
appears that the impasse has been resolved now after hectic
negotiations. Last month, secretary of Department of Atomic Energy,
Government of India along with other senior officers of the
department had a meeting with the Russian counterparts and a
breakthrough was made. Things were expedited later and the proposal
was moved before the Cabinet Committee on Security in March 2014.
However before this decision could be announced, India's Election
Commission announced General Elections within a week of the
decisions.
As per
statutory provisions, once the elections are announced, previous
elected Government can not take any new policy decisions and the
matter had to be referred to the commission itself. Election
Commission gave their clearance to the Department of Atomic Energy to
sign an agreement with its Russian counterpart for unit 3 and 4 on
April 7th
2014 and within just 4 days, India and Russia have signed an
agreement for building units 3 and 4 of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power
Plant project (KKNPP) at a cost of US$ 4.47 Billion. These additional
2 reactors are of third generation VVER-1200 type reactors with a
capacity of 1170 MW each.
Though
the agreement has been signed now, it is not clear how the liability
issue has been resolved. Under India's Civil Liability Nuclear
Damage Act 2010 (CLND), it is mandatory to have an insurance of over
US$ 250 million, which could be used as compensation in case of any
nuclear accident. However, India's General Insurance Company (GIC),
says that it has not yet offered any kind of insurance to the
Government for the additional reactors. The matter remains unclear
and the next incumbent Government would have to sort out the issue.
In
spite of a few loose ends, the agreement is no doubt welcome.
Southern grid that feeds the states in the south, does not have
enough power sources and remains power hungry with power outages
being a daily affair. This agreement bring at least brings in an
assurance that may be after a decade or so, enough or even surplus
power may become available for India's south.
14th
April 2014
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