Light-water reactors: India

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This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

Light-water reactors: an introduction

The Indian Express, January 7, 2015

The family of LWRs, cooled and moderated using ordinary water, tend to be simpler and cheaper to build than other types of nuclear reactors, due to which they make up the majority of civil nuclear reactors — including those built by the Russian, French and US firms — as well as naval propulsion reactors in service across the world.

Unlike the natural uranium and heavy water-based Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs), which constitute the mainstay of India’s nuclear power programme, LWRs (such as pressurised water reactors and boiling water reactors) use enriched uranium as fuel and ordinary water as both the moderator and coolant.

LWR project in India

Of India’s current installed nuclear power capacity of 4,780 MWe, a total of 4,160 MWe is based on the indigenous PHWR technology and 620 MW on foreign technical cooperation using LWR technology.

History

Tarapur, Maharashtra: 1969

India’s atomic power programme commenced in the early sixties with two imported LWR units (of the boiling water reactor-type and imported from the US) at Tarapur of 160-MWe capacity, each set up by Bechtel and GE under US assistance. that became operational in 1969.

Rawatbhata, Rajasthan: 1973

A 100MWe unit set up with Canadian assistance at Rawatbhata in 1973, based on which, the NPCIL kicked off its indigenous programme with the design of its 220-MWe PHWRs. Subsequently, the indigenous PHWRs of 540-MWe capacity were developed and NPCIL is currently setting up four newly developed 700-MWe PHWRs at Kakrapar and Rawatbhata.

Kudankulam

Two 1000 MWe units of the Kudankulam nuclear power project built with assistance from Russia also use LWR reactors while three more sites are being readied for setting up projects deploying LWRs of three different types — the French EPRs (1650MWe of Areva), Toshiba Westinghouse’s AP1000 and GE-Hitachi’s ESBWR.

Chitradurga, Karnataka

The LWR project is a joint effort between the BARC in Mumbai and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd.

India has started work on fabricating a Light Water Reactor (LWR) of 900 MWe (megawatt electric) for electricity generation, a reactor technology that differs from the heavy water reactors that form the mainstay of the country’s nuclear power programme currently.

The LWR project is a joint effort between the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL). A new Special Uranium Enrichment Facility to fuel the LWR reactor has also been proposed at Chitradurga, Karnataka.

Regulatory authority: AERB

The Department of Atomic Energy is in the process of preparing “detailed designs” of the 900 MWe pressurised water reactor for approval by the regulatory authority — the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), according to a government official involved in the exercise. The design builds on the indigenously developed small-sized LWR developed since 2011, a compact version of which was deployed aboard the INS Arihant — the first Indian nuclear-powered submarine.