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Kaiga to start commercial operations in November

The second unit of the Kaiga nuclear power plant is all set to start commercial operation in November.

The 220 MW unit is expected to become functional by the second week of September and begin commercial production two months later, V K Sharma, project director, told a group of visiting journalists in Kaiga.

Uranium fuel has been loaded into the second unit's reactor and all systems had been tested and were in place. A series of expert agencies were to clear it on the safety front before the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board gave the unit the green signal. The Project Design Safety Committee, which met at Kaiga on Monday, made certain recommendations that are to be carried out before the Advisory Committee for Project Safety Review investigated the safety measures built into the plant.

The AERB is to consider the ACPSR report at its meeting in Bombay on August 28, Sharma said.

Kaiga Station Director N Rajasabai said power generation would be raised gradually to the maximum capacity once criticality was achieved.

The power produced is to be fed into the state grid via the Kaiga-Sirsi transmission line. Initially, the power would be transmitted through the Sirsi line because the planned Sirsi-Davangere line had been held up by the environment department since laying it would involve the clearing of forests.

Rajasabai said 3,672 bundles of uranium would be loaded into 306 channels of the reactor. Every day, 120 kg of uranium would be used to produce five million units of power.

Allaying fears about radioactivity, he said a foolproof waste disposal system has been put in place under which the waste would be treated in a huge double-walled water tank. The waste water released into the Kadra dam would be constantly monitored and the radioactivity regulated to ensure international safety standards.

Asked about the validity of protests by environmental groups against the nuclear power plant, Sharma said the authorities had held a series of meetings with these groups and convinced them that such fears were unfounded since they stemmed from "misinformation" and campaign by some "vested interests".

Sharma said the first 220 MW unit was expected to attain criticality by June 2000. Since work on the unit had been delayed following the collapse of the inner dome during construction, the authorities had decided to push through the commissioning of the second unit. The two expert committees that studied the dome's collapse felt many factors were responsible for the mishap.

He said on the basis of recommendations of these committees, the inner wall of the dome had been further strengthened, with the grade of concrete used being raised from M 45 to M 60. Recently, pressure testing was conducted on the rebuilt dome and the leakage was within 30 per cent of the permissible limits.

The first two units cost about Rs 29 billion and the Kaiga project envisaged addition of four more units of 220 MW capacity each.

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