Mumbai: With the commencement of
commercial operation of RAPS-6 at Rawatbhata from Wednesday, the
nuclear island of Rajasthan generates one third of India`s
nuclear power.
"With Rajasthan Atomic Power station unit-6
synchronisation on March 28 and commercialisation from today,
the northern grid of the country will receive 1180 MW capacity
out of the total 4560 MW generated from nuclear power in the
country," Chairman and Managing Director of Nuclear Power
Corporation of India said.
"With the commissioning of RAPS-6, the number of
nuclear power reactors in commercial operation in the country,
has increased to 19 and thus India joined group of the USA,
France, Japan, Russian Federation, Republic of Korea and
United Kingdom in terms of number of reactors in operation,"
Jain said.
RAPS units 2, 5 and 6 are currently working with
imported uranium fuel and are under International Atomic
Energy agency`s safeguards and units 4 and 5 soon join them.
The generation from RAPS 5 and 6 will be shared by the
states in Northern Electricity region with a tariff of Rs 3
per unit as per the market rate, he said.
Meanwhile, construction of two 700 MW each has
begun at Rajasthan nuclear island, Jain said.
The nuclear power generation in the country in 2009-10
is 18,800 million units, 26 per cent higher than in 2008-09,
and NPCIL plans to augment the generation next year by more
than 130 per cent of generation in 2009-2010, Jain said.
Highlighting the beauty of nuclear power plants that
they could operate more than 100 per cent capacity as the
plants do not have fuel problem, executive director, corporate
planning of NPCIL S Thakur said.
RAPS 5, which is currently operating at 212 MW non-stop
since January this year, can reach upto 235 MW (instead of its
original 220 MW capacity), he said.
RAPS unit 2, which is rated for 200 MW, is running at
209 MW since January 2010.
Thakur also said that it was significant to note that
Madras Atomic Power Station Unit 2 (MAPS-2) is in continuous
operation since January 25, 2009 (nearly 430 days), RAPS-3
since June 26, 2009, Tarapur Atomic Power Station unit 2 since
July 22, 2009, Kakrapar Power Station Unit 2 since July 4,
2009, Kaiga Atomic Power Station since July 4, 2009.
"All these are possible in nuclear power generation
because of excellent thermodynamic efficiency of Turbine
Generation (TG) sets of nuclear power plants," Thakur said.
PTI
