OREANDA-NEWS. April 19, 2012.  On April 18-20, 2012 Director of NIAEP, management company of Atomstroyexport, Valery Limarenko is on the working visit  to NPP Kudankulam site (India).

During the visit the planned events include the negotiations with the management of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, Ltd. (NPCIL) on promotion of projects of Units 1-4 of NPP Kudankulam, meeting with the team of Atomstroyexport (ASE) on the plant construction site, walkdown of the plant’s Phase One site together with the NPCIL management, and a visit to the plant’s Phase Two site.

Under the intergovernmental agreement, ASE is building Phase One of NPP Kudankulam in the Indian state Tamil Nadu. In September 2011 on the Kudankulam site main programs of the “hot runs” phase were completed and the power unit was put in the cooldown mode followed by moving to the phase of the second equipment inspection. However, in October 2011, the Russian personnel were barred out the site due to protests of the local residents and all startup and adjustment operations were terminated. They were resumed on March 20, 2012.

“We are glad that the Government of Tamil Nadu State has decided to resume construction of NPP Kudankulam and the work has been underway again on the site since March 20, Valery Limarenko commented. “Two power units of NPP Kudankulam of 1,000 MW capacity each are called for to substantially improve the energy situation in the south of India, which, while developing fast in recent years, is nearly gasping because of an acute shortage of electricity. As for us, NPP Kudankulam is the largest project of the Russian-Hindu economic cooperation and the largest NPP in India. The future exports of Russian power technology depend greatly on success of this project.

V. Limarenko also noted that NPP Kudankulam power units would feature an unprecedented level of nuclear and radiation safety, which fully meets post-Fukushima requirements. The project feature of principle is that the traditional combined active safety systems are supplemented by a number of engineering solutions based on passive principles, which move this design closer to reactor installations of Generation IV. In particular, NPP Kudankulam design includes a core melt trap and a system for passive heat removal from the reactor installation. In addition, the plant operational safety is ensured by several safety barriers and multiple redundancy of safety trains.

At the present time, the full evaluation of conditions of the equipment and systems, and compilation of a necessary work list and schedule are underway. The ultimate goal of this work is to complete the stage of the second equipment inspection and obtain a fuel loading permit from AERB, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board of India.