Commercial operation of 603-MW reactor unit expected this year
Fuel loading has begun at the Rajasthan-7 nuclear power plant in the state of Rajasthan, northwest India, with commercial operation expected this year, government-owned Nuclear Power of Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) said in a statement on 2 August.
NPCIL said initial fuel loading will be followed by preparations for first criticality and the start of power generation.
“The unit is expected to commence commercial operation in the current year,” the company said.
A second unit under construction at the same site, Rajasthan-8, is expected to come online in 2025, NPCIL said.
Both Rajasthan-7 and Rajasthan-8 are indigenous NPCIL-designed Generation III 603-MW pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) developed from earlier 220 MW and 540 MW Canadian Candu designs. Construction of Unit 7 began in July 2011 and Unit 8 in September 2011.
The Rajasthan site has five existing nuclear plants in commercial operation, all earlier generation PHWRs with a net capacity of around 202 MW each. Another earlier generation PHWR unit, the 134-MW Rajasthan-1, was shut down in 2004 and will be decommissioned.
Rajasthan-7 is the third in a series of 16 PHWRs which India has said it plans to build. The first two units, Kakarapar-3 and Kakrapar-4 in Gujurat state, western India, began commercial operation in 2023 and 2024.
Site works have begun for the construction of two PHWR units at Gorakhpur in Haryana state. Ten further 700 MW PHWRs have received administrative approval and financial sanction. They are: Kaiga-5 and Kaiga-6 in Karnataka state; Gorakhpur-3 and -4 in Haryana state; Chutka-1 and -2 in Madhya Pradesh state and Mahi Banswara-1, -2, -3 and -4 in Rajasthan.
New Delhi is bullish on nuclear and recently said it aims to have an installed capacity of 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047, a massive increase from the current level of around 6.9 GW and on recent targets of 22.4 GW by 2032.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, India officially has seven plants under construction with a total net capacity of about 5.3 GW.
It has 20 reactors in commercial operation which provided about 3% of the country’s electricity generation in 2022.
