Fourth steam generator for new Kaiga units completed
Indian engineering company Larsen & Toubro has dispatched the fourth of eight steam generators intended for units 5 and 6 at the Kaiga nuclear power plant in Karnataka State.
With the dispatch of the component - about 24 metres in length, with a diameter of about 4 metres and weighing more than 200 tonnes - from its A M Naik Heavy Engineering Complex in Hazira, Gujarat, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) said it has now "completed the delivery of a set of four steam generators (SGs) for one unit for the indigenously developed 10x700 MWe Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor Fleet Programme".
Steam generators are heat exchangers used to convert water into steam from heat produced in a nuclear reactor core. In PHWRs, the coolant is pumped, at high pressure to prevent boiling, from the reactor coolant pump, through the nuclear reactor core, and through the tube side of the steam generators before returning to the pump.
The previous three steam generators for Kaiga 5 and 6 were delivered to the construction site between August 2024 and early February this year.
"The fourth SG has been dispatched nine months ahead of the contractual schedule, while the full set of four SGs has been delivered in 45 months," L&T noted. "Setting a global benchmark, the first of the lot was delivered in just 33 months."
Anil V Parab, director and senior executive vice president at Heavy Engineering and L&T Valves, said: "L&T Heavy Engineering's nuclear team continues to be the industry trend-setter. Our large talent pool, trained in robust nuclear quality culture, ensures consistent first-time-right execution and globally benchmarked deliveries. This accomplishment is in alignment with the Honourable PM's Viksit Bharat 2047 vision of achieving at least 100 GWe nuclear power generation."
Kaiga 5 and 6 will be the first of ten Indian-designed 700 MWe pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) to be built using a fleet mode of construction to bring economies of scale as well as maximising efficiency, which have been given administrative approval and financial sanction by the Indian government. Excavation works for the units began in May 2022.
Two 700 MWe PHWR units have already been built at Kakrapar, in Gujurat, and are already in commercial operation, while another, Rajasthan unit 7, was connected to the grid last month and is expected to begin commercial operation later this year.
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