Indian nuclear power plants’ performance improves on higher uranium import volumes

After a long period of operating at below optimum capacity, India’s nuclear reactors are starting to perk up on the back of higher uranium imports from France and Russia. The overall operating efficiency of the country’s nuclear fleet rose by 53 per cent on year for the April-June period according to the Central Electricity Authority.

At present, only six of the country’s 19 nuclear reactors are operating under the international safeguards required for the use of imported uranium. Two units at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station and one reactor at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS) reported capacity factors over 90 per cent for April-June 2010, while a fourth RAPS unit operated at above 70 per cent capacity. The RAPS units are supplied by France’s Areva, while Russia’s state-owned fuel monopoly TVEL Corporation supplies Tarapur.

India’s Department of Atomic Energy is currently holding talks with Canada, Kazakhstan and some African countries, with a view to importing more uranium. It is also looking to boost the number of the country’s nuclear reactors operating under IAEA safeguards to 14 by 2014. These will include units 3 and 4 of RAPS later this year, two units of Kakrapar Atomic Power Station in 2012 and two units of Narora Atomic Power Station in 2013.

There is a progressive improvement in the uranium fuel position for the operating nuclear plants and especially with supply of imported uranium for all the five units of RAPS, Nuclear Power Corporation’s units which are not under international safeguards and improvement in production of indigenous fuel from the new mill at Turamdih. “We have reached a comfortable position,” DAE officials said.

“With the improvement in production of indigenous uranium from the new Turamdih mill in Jhakhand and the older mill in Jaduguda, we expect to come back to our old glory of having 90 per cent capacity of all the operating plants in a couple of years,” they said.