Ceremony marks start of Indian project

Tuesday, 14 January 2014

The foundation stone of the Gorakhpur nuclear power plant in Haryana state has been laid by Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh. The first two units of the plant are both scheduled to begin operating by 2021.

Singh (second from right on front row) attends the foundation stone laying ceremony for the Gorakhpur plant (Image: Prime Minister of India's Office)

A ceremony attended by local dignitaries and officials from Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) was held yesterday at the Gorakhpur site in the Fatehabad district of Haryana, about 170km northwest of Delhi.

"Today our country has an installed nuclear power generating capacity of 4800 MWe. We hope that in the next ten years the country will manage to achieve more than 27,000 MWe of nuclear power capacity."

Prime Minister Singh

The Gorakhpur plant is expected to be built in two phases, each comprising two indigenously-designed 700 MWe pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs). Following the completion of preparatory groundwork and final approvals, the pouring of first concrete for the initial unit is scheduled for June 2015. Construction is expected to take some 63 months. The second unit will follow six months behind the first, with both units set to start up by 2020-2021. The cost of the first two units at Gorakhpur is put at INR210 billion ($3.4 billion).

The reactors at Gorakhpur will be of the same design as four other 700 MWe PHWRs currently under construction in India: units 3 and 4 of the Kakrapar plant in Gujarat and units 7 and 8 of the Rawatbhata plant in Rajasthan.

Eighteen of the 21 reactors in operation in India are PHWRs, which are fuelled by un-enriched natural uranium and use heavy water as the moderator and coolant.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News