India completes Kudankulam 2 nuclear reactor and South Africa begins procurement for 9.6 GW of nuclear power by 2030

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Construction of unit 2 of the c nuclear power plant in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu has been completed. In a 14 July statement, AERB also said that it had issued a licence for the regular operation of unit 1, which entered commercial operation on 31 December, and a siting permit for a project to build four reactors in Gorakhpur in Haryana.

“The construction of unit 2 of KK-NNPP is complete and the unit is presently undergoing initial commissioning activities,” AERB said.

Gorakhpur Haryana Anu Vidyut Pariyojana (GHAVP) is a nuclear power plant construction project to build four 700 MWe units. These proposed units belong to a new generation of indigenous pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), AERB said. GHAVP units 1 to 4 will be a “repeat design” of Kakrapar Atomic Power Project (KAPP 3 and 4) and the Rajasthan Atomic Power Project (RAPP 7 and 8), which are “in advanced stages of construction”, AERB said. These PHWRs will have additional passive safety design features for enhanced levels of safety, it added.

AERB said it had granted siting clearance for GHAVP following an extensive multi-tier safety review of the application and supporting documents that NPCIL had submitted.

India has a largely indigenous nuclear power program and expects to have 14,600 MWe of nuclear capacity on line by 2020. It aims to supply 25% of electricity from nuclear power by 2050.

Kudankulam is the country’s first large nuclear power plant, comprising two VVER-1000 (V-412) reactors, under a Russian-financed $3 billion contract and built as part of a bilateral agreement between India and Russia signed back in 1988. The units were originally scheduled to begin commercial operation in December 2007 and December 2008 respectively.

2. South Africa will launch its nuclear power procurement process at end of this month and select a strategic partner or partners by the end of the current financial year

The government’s electricity plan, which the ministry said is “a mixed energy agenda” that puts nuclear power at 23% (9600 MWe) of South Africa’s energy sources by 2030. In accordance with this plan, the first reactor will be commissioned by 2023.