54MW share from 4th unit of Kaiga to bring relief to TN

The fourth unit of 220 MW Kaiga Generating Station (KGS-4), located in Uttar Kannada district of Karnataka, was connected to the southern power grid. Tamil Nadu will get 54 MW as its share and this comes as a minor relief to the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board which faces a deficit of 1,000 MW.This amount of power is sufficient enough to provide electricity to an locality like Chintadripet in the city which has a power demand of 50 MW. The TNEB already gets its share of 171 MW from Kaiga's three other units.

As on date, the demand of the TNEB stands at nearly 10,000 MW while the generation is nearly 9,000 MW, which includes purchased power. The deficit of over 1,000 MW is met either by power production from wind energy or by procurement from private power producers or other states.

"Our share from Kaiga's three units is 171 MW and as on date we get nearly 115 MW from it. So the supply will vary according to the generation of the units.

But any quantity of power supplied now will be of great help as summer is nearing and the demand is expected to go up," said a TNEB official.

According to a press release, the fourth unit kicked off generation after the grant of clearance by Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). With this synchronisation of KGS-4 with the grid, India's nuclear power capacity has shot up to to 4780 MW, with 20 reactors in operation. The installed capacity of Kaiga station is now 880 MW, making it the third largest after Tarapur (1400 MW) and Rawatbhata (1180 MW). The unit, fuelled by indigenous uranium, will supply electricity to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Meanwhile, the TNEB is bracing itself for summer which starts early in Tamil Nadu. This time, power managers do not want to rely on wind power alone, as last year it had dropped from nearly 2,500 MW to zero, causing massive power cuts across the state.

This year, the TNEB already invited tenders for supply of round the clock supply of 300 MW, 400 MW and 350 MW for the months of February, March and April respectively.

For April and May, the TNEB has invited tenders for supply of 800 MW during peak hours and 200 MW for off-peak hours.

Jaitapur nuclear plant gets conditional nod

The Expert Appraisal Committee of the environment ministry has given a conditional clearance to the proposed Jaitapur nuclear power project in Maharashtra. 

Final clearance for the project, however, will be given only after the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) approves it, since assessment reports studied by the environmental panel does not deal with the issues related to radiation. A final decision on the project will be taken by environment minister Jairam Ramesh after this. 

Experts and civil society groups like the Konkan Bachao Samiti are opposed to the project, expressing concerns about the radiological safety of the proposed 10,000 mw plant. 

In a nuclear plant, 70-80% of the environmental impact is on account of radioactivity. The National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), which prepared the environmental impact assessment report, accepts that it does not have expertise to examine issues of radiological aspects of the project. 

There are questions about the quality of the environmental impact assessment report prepared by NEERI. The report is understood to be based on generic and incomplete inputs and is incomplete on issues of radioactive hazard. It would appear that project developer Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) submitted generic information to NEERI for the report. 

Concerns over safety refuse to be allayed as NPCIL has only submitted a preliminary safety assessment report, that too for the Flamanville project in France as a sample to AERB. Since the preliminary safety aspect report specific to the Jaitapur Nuclear Power project is yet to be finalised and submitted to the atomic energy board, AERB approval process is yet to start. 

AERB is responsible for giving final approval on account of design of plant from the safety, radioactive emissions, storage and disposal of low, intermediate and high level radioactive waste by products and impact on radioactivity on environment during normal operation and extraordinary events and after the service life of the plant. 

Another cause of concern is the issue of reprocessing spent fuel. The EIA report is silent on this issue. NPCIL had informed the Konkan Bachao Samiti in a meeting in August that the spent fuel would be taken to another facility for reprocessing. 

“The environment ministry should ask for a fresh environment impact assessment report for the Jaitapur Nuclear power project based on the comprehensive inputs only after final approval from AERB,” the Konkan Bachao Samiti has suggested. 

The proposed 10,000 mw nuclear power park will be set up near the Konkan coastal region in co-operation with French energy company Areva. There are only five other plants of this size in the world, and none of these have been commissioned. This raises issues of safety and waste disposal which have as yet not been addressed anywhere. 

On the other hand, the proposed Jaitapur project represents the actualisation of the civilian nuclear deals finalised by the UPA-I government. These factors make the decision before the environment minister tough. 

For its part, the environmental panel is understood to have stipulated some “stringent” conditions to counter adverse impact. However, civil society groups would argue that a clearance by the environment ministry at this stage is based on incomplete information.