India's 5 out of 17 nuke power plants shut down for lack of fuel
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New Delhi, Oct 22, IRNA
India-Nuke Power Plants-Fuel Shortage
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has said that five of the 17 nuclear power plants in the country had been shut down and the remaining are operating at an average of less than 50 percent capacity for want of fuel.
Two units at Narora atomic power plant in Uttar Pradesh are shut down for annual maintenance work while the newly commissioned Kaiga unit 3 in Karnataka and one unit of Kalpakkam atomic power plant near Chennai are facing closure for want of fuel, Indian national TV news portal reported here quoting Chairman and Managing Director of NPCIL S K Jain said.
Two units of Rajasthan Atomic Power plants are shut down as feeder pipe replacement is taking place, Jain said, adding all these may get started immediately as there was a mismatch of uranium fuel in the country.
Rest of the 12 plants which had an established 95 percent capacity are now running between 50-70 percent making the average capacity of nuclear power production in the country less than 50 percent, he said.
The Nuclear Fuel Complex Chief Executive R N Jairaj said his company was able to make use of only 30 percent of the total capacity and is being under-utilized due to the "mismatch" of fuel.
The fuel "mismatch" situation has started affecting the performance of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL).
Currently operating nuclear power stations with a capacity of around 4,000 MWe, NPCIL has been forced to slash power production levels.
The mismatch has been created due to NPCIL's demonstration to the World that it could have the power plant capacity up to 95 percent and also its demonstration of reducing the gestation period of construction from 10 years to four and a half to five years, according to Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) sources.
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