Nuclear Power production

The stalling of the Kudankulam nuclear power project for nearly six months has not prevented the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL), overseeing the controversial project, to surpass all records in electricity generation for the financial year 2011-12. The NPCIL, under which there are 19 nuclear reactors operating across the country, has produced 32,455 million units (MU) compared to 26,473MU produced last year —an increase of about 23%. NPCIL chairman S K Jain said, “The turnover of the company has increased to Rs 7,500 crore compared to Rs 6,000 crore last year. Tarapur Atomic Power Station unit-3 (TAPS-3) achieved a remarkable feat of a continuous operation for 522 days. It joined the fleet of 10 nuclear power reactors, which operated continuously for more than a year. Safety continued to be accorded highest priority in all the nuclear power reactors, and there were no incidents even while achieving the excellent operational performance.” After the Fukushima disaster, the company conducted safety review of the operating nuclear power reactors as well as those under construction and claimedthat the reactors were safe from extreme natural events like earthquake and tsunami, the chairman said. “The achieved target included production from unit 1 of the Kudankulam plant. But the protests derailed our plans. But due to better performance of the other plants, we were able to meet the target,” S A Bharadwaj, director NPCIL said. The NPCIL have planned launch projects with power generation capacity of 17,000MW in the current five-year plan With the completion of these reactors, the nuclear power capacity is expected to reach over 20,000MW by 2021- 22