Tamil Nadu: Kudankulam nuclear plant first unit shuts for refuelling

TIRUNELVELI: The first unit of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) was shut down on Thursday for mandatory annual maintenance and for second refuelling outage.

The KKNPP-1, a 1000 mwe VVER (water-cooled water-moderated reactor) of the pressurized water reactor type that uses enriched uranium oxide fuel to generate electricity was shutdown for annual maintenance and refueling at 05.53 hours on April 13.

According to S V Jinna, the KKNPP site director (in-charge) the turbine generator of unit-1 remained in service for a cumulative period of around 7,000 hours and generated 7,253 million units till Thursday since the unit resumed operation after the first refuelling was done a year ago. When the reactor was shut down, it was generating 900 mwe, against its maximum capacity of 1000 mwe.

During the process of maintenance and refuelling outage expected to last for 65 days, about one-third of the spent fuel assemblies of the 163 enriched fuel assembly rods would be replaced with fresh fuel bundles.