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Indian reactor breaks operating record

Thursday, 25 October 2018

Unit 1 of India's Kaiga nuclear power plant has completed its 895th day of continuous operation, a new world record for continuous operation of a pressurised heavy water reactor and the second-longest for a nuclear power reactor of any type.

Indian reactor breaks operating record — Kaiga nuclear power plant (Image: NPCIL)

The 220 MWe Indian-designed and domestically fuelled reactor has now operated without a break since 13 May 2016, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) announced today.

The previous operating record for a PHWR of 894 days was set in October 1994 by the Pickering 7 reactor in Canada. The current world record for continuous operation for a commercial nuclear power reactor of any type is held by unit 2 of the UK's Heysham II plant, an advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) which had completed an unbroken 940 days in service when it was taken offline for a scheduled maintenance outage in September 2016.

PHWRs and AGRs are designed to be refuelled without being shut down first, and Indian reactors have achieved operating runs of over a year 28 times, NPCIL said. Kaiga 1 is one of three Indian reactors to have operated continuously for more than two years, alongside Rajasthan unit 3, with 777 days of continuous operation, and Rajasthan 5, with 765 days.