Kudankulam nuclear plant begins power generation

Tamil Nadu – Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, that has come up despite huge protests, on Tuesday morning began generating power and is expected to begin to ease the acute power shortage situation in the state.

At 2.45 am, Tuesday, the first unit of the 2X1000 MW power plant, generated 75 MW of electricity which was fed into the southern grid, plant officials said.

Plant site director RS Sundar said, “Unit 1 synchronisation with the power grid done at 2.45 am Tuesday, generating 75 MW of power.”

With this, the first of the two 1000 MW nuclear reactors erected at Kudankulam inTirunelveli district, located some 650 km south of Chennai, has commenced production. The power generation would be stepped up gradually, the top official at the plant site said.

This unit had attained criticality in July and was undergoing a series of tests after it got permission from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board in the month of August. After initial hiccups and eliminating teething troubles, the officials of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) that is building the nuclear power project there managed to commence production on Tuesday.

This is good news for Tamil Nadu as power from KNPP is expected to ease the acute power shortage situation in the state that has witnessed long power cuts for domestic and industrial consumers across the states.

Tamil Nadu is expected to get roughly half the power generated from the first unit, which has a capacity of 1000 MW when fully operational. According to TN generation and distribution corporation officials, TN’s share out of the first unit would be 463 MW.

As and when the power comes to southern grid from the KNPP, it would ease the power shortage to some extent, the power utility company officials said.