Rosatom handed over Kudankulam Unit 1 to the customer. Unit 2 was connected to India’s national power grid. Andrei Lebedev shares his memories of the construction process and strict attitude of the Indian regulator, and gives his outlook for nuclear partnership between Russia and India.
– What did you feel when Kudankulam Unit 1 was handed over to India?
– Pride and joy. Anyone who has ever started up a power unit would understand my feelings. Ten years of hard work have passed, and here is the result. And it is not just technology, but human emotions, quite in line with Oriental traditions.
– Was it a ceremonial handover?
– It was a public event staged as a video conference. It brought together Russian President Vladimir Putin, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, and ASE and NPCIL managers who presented the Kudankulam nuclear station. The Indian Prime Minister expressed his gratitude to Russia for delivering the project. According to him, it is remarkable that the first state-of-the-art power unit built on Indian soil is based on the Russian design and has the largest capacity among those operating in India. Narendra Modi’s speech was felt to be very sincere and emotional. Joint efforts of ASE and Indian nuclear companies were highly praised, and many thankful words were also addressed to Russia’s President. Monitors installed in the station’s office building were broadcasting the event online. I do not understand Tamil, but expressions of people’s faces spoke of pure joy.
– How strict is the Indian regulator?
– The Indian regulatory authority inspires confidence and respect. It is staffed with true professionals who do not miss even the tiniest detail about safety. Truth be told, it was very hard to obtain a permit for the reactor installation, power ascension or unit commissioning. I understand clearly that they dig very deep in every issue and that India’s regulator is a very responsible authority that has a tight grip on safety issues at our station or anywhere else.
– The customer is said to have imposed numerous requirements for the Kudankulam project. Is it true?
– It is. Needless to say, the unit we have built is reliable and safe, with high redundancy of the critical equipment. As required by the Indian party, the project design combines active and passive safety systems. This combination is unprecedented in the nuclear industry and has never been used at any of the Russian-design stations in the world. Core catchers are not new, but passive safety systems at Kudankulam are unparalleled. These systems are based on natural processes and their functioning does not depend on human actions or power supply.
The unit is equipped with advanced monitoring and diagnostic systems. If we compare the unit to a human being, it is prevention rather than treatment of a disease. Our diagnostic systems spot a deviation and counteract before any adverse effect arises. This is an advantage of today’s power units. From this point of view, India’s unit is perfect.
– It took 48 months to build Zaporizhzhya Unit 3 while the construction of Kudankulam Unit 1 lasted a decade. Why?
– I was fortunate to spend 20 years working at all the six units of Zaporizhzhya nuclear station. It is known for a record short time it took to construct and commission some of its reactor units. Today we rely on the expertise acquired at large-scale construction projects in Russia. Unfortunately, India is not ready to assimilate our construction technology. Although all the six reactors could have been located next to each other in a line, the customer requested to build three separate stations, each featuring two reactor units, at a significant time interval in the construction. The Indian industry is not prepared to pre-assembly large structures on neighboring sites either. As a result, construction of a multi-unit nuclear power station progresses slower than anticipated. This is why we do not expect any record short completion of the first project phase in India. At the second phase, we will try to streamline all the processes to speed up the overall construction.
Another cause of the low construction speed was the fact that India had never built anything similar to these reactor units, neither in terms of capacity nor design. It took us more time to train Indian engineers in new technologies and methods of construction, installation and operation.
Apart from that, we had much trouble with building a large intake facility to supply sea water for the NPP cooling system. We regained a considerable sea area and turned it into a dry dock to build underground drain tunnels and floating caissons. The Kudankulam water intake facility with its large locks and control systems reminds of coastal protection structures in Saint Petersburg.
– How do Indians feel about nuclear energy?
– The people in India are very sociable, ingenuous and close to nature. There were fears among some of the seaside residents that the nuclear station construction might harm the local marine life and drive fish away. Of course, those who earn their living by fishing opposed the project. Their agitation settled down though, many people change their minds on nuclear energy after the station was put in operation. It is pure physics – whirling waters heave the biomass up from the seabed and it attracts fish to the place rather than drives it away. Sometimes fish gets into the station’s water intake facility, but the powerful compressor blows it up to the surface, and fast upper currents and water pumps force the fish back into the ocean.
For your information: Kudankulam Unit 2 featuring a VVER-1000 reactor with an installed capacity of 1,000 MWe was connected to the Indian national power grid at 11:17 local time on 29 August. This happened only a month and a half after the controlled chain reaction was initiated in the reactor, and it achieved criticality. Meanwhile, Moscow and New Delhi are in the run-up to signing a framework agreement for the construction of Kudankulam Units 5 and 6. And this is not a limit to the Russian-Indian partnership. The strategic vision for construction of Russian-designed power reactors in India was set out in a document signed by the two countries in December 2014. According to the document, Russia plans to build up to 25 reactors in India.
