This week, the First Pour of Concrete (FPC) was initiated at RAPP-7, the seventh reactor to built at the Rawatbhata, Rajasthan location in the deserts of northwestern India.
The new plant will have a capacity of 700 megawatts, the largest heavy water reactor possible. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) hopes to start commercial operations by June 2016. The first pour of concrete for Unit 8 at this location is expected later this year. The Rajasthan Atomic Power Stations already has six reactors (of which RAPS-2 to RAPS-6 are functional) with a total capacity of about 1.2 gigawatts.
The RAPP7 ceremony was attended by India’s Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr. Srikumar Banerjee and Nuclear Power Corp. of India Limited Chairman and Managing Director Shreyans Kumar Jain. The700-megawatt PHWR was designed by NPCIL engineers by scaling up the design of its 540-megawatt PHWRs operating at Tarapur since 2005.
Two additional 700 megawatt units are already being built at Kakrapar, in Gujarat close to the Western coast.
What this means:
