Kudankulam unit 1 to restart soon, unit 2 by March

New Delhi: Unit 1 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant (KNPP) that shut down in June last year for maintenance is to restart functioning very soon, while the second unit will be operational by March this year, an official release said on Saturday.

Inaugurating northern India's first permanent exhibition on nuclear power here, Minister of State for Atomic Energy Jitendra Singh said that "unit 1 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant was shut down due to natural processes that are followed and it will start functioning very soon", according to a statement by the department of atomic energy.

The minister also said that Unit 2 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant will be operational by March this year, it added.

The first 1,000 MW unit at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelvelli district, around 650 km from Chennai, was shut down in June 2015 for 60 days for refuelling and maintenance work.

The unit has not restarted till date as testing of various systems is on. Only after successful completion of the tests, will the unit restart power generation.

Officials had earlier said the unit would restart sometime in mid-January.

The second 1,000 MW unit at Kudankulam is expected to go critical, or start the fission process, for the first time sometime this year.

India will be signing the remaining agreements with Russia for the third and fourth units at Kudankulam, estimated to cost around Rs.40,000 crore. The site work is expected to begin for these two units sometime this year.

Negotiations are on with Russia for fifth and sixth units.