Rosatom’s engineering division Atommash will soon begin the production of two steam generators for India’s Kudankulam Units 3 and 4. A delegation from the Indian Ministry of Heavy Industries headed by the director of the Ministry’s department Praveen Kumar visited Atommash to see how core equipment for the nuclear station is manufactured at Rosatom’s largest plant.
After the visit to the Atommash history museum, Indian delegates toured key production sites and had a chance to see the manufacturing process, quality assurance operations and tests of reactor components and steam generators, as well as large distillation towers and other column equipment for the oil processing industry.
At the end of the visit, Praveen Kumar said that Atommash had extensive capacities as a manufacturer and supplier of the nuclear and petrochemical equipment, with a great emphasis on quality and safety.
The Kudankulam nuclear power plant is constructed in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. With a capacity of 1,000 MW, Kudankulam Unit 1 is so far India’s most powerful reactor compliant with the latest safety requirements. The unit was connected to the Indian national power grid in 2013.
As for Kudankulam Unit 2, the reactor startup program was completed in July, in full compliance with the project schedule. The startup began on 11 May 2016 when the first fuel assembly was loaded into the core following the reactor preparation phase. With a total of 163 fuel assemblies loaded, a permit was obtained from India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) to go critical. Minimal criticality was achieved on 10 July. All the works were carried out by Indian engineers supported by Russian technical expertise. The next task is to begin load trials before the unit can be first connected to the grid.
In the spring of 2014, Russia and India signed a framework agreement to build the third and fourth units at Kudankulam. Construction documents were signed in December of the same year. At present, the parties are drafting a framework agreement on Units 5 and 6.
