Work begins on India’s first Light Water Reactor after smaller version

The family of LWRs, cooled and moderated using ordinary water, tend to be simpler and cheaper to build than other types of nuclear reactors, due to which they make up the majority of civil nuclear reactors — including those built by the Russian, French and US firms — as well as naval propulsion reactors in service across the world.

The LWR project is a joint effort between the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL). A new Special Uranium Enrichment Facility to fuel the LWR reactor has also been proposed at Chitradurga, Karnataka.

Unlike the natural uranium and heavy water-based Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs), which constitute the mainstay of India’s nuclear power programme, LWRs (such as pressurised water reactors and boiling water reactors) use enriched uranium as fuel and ordinary water as both the moderator and coolant. Incidently, India’s atomic power programme commenced in the early sixties with two imported LWR units (of the boiling water reactor-type) at Tarapur of 160-MWe capacity, each set up by Bechtel and GE under US assistance. that became operational in 1969.

The next reactor was a 100MWe unit set up with Canadian assistance at Rawatbhata four years later, based on which, the NPCIL kicked off its indigenous programme with the design of its 220-MWe PHWRs. Subsequently, the indigenous PHWRs of 540-MWe capacity were developed and NPCIL is currently setting up four newly developed 700-MWe PHWRs at Kakrapar and Rawatbhata.

Of India’s current installed nuclear power capacity of 4,780 MWe, a total of 4,160 MWe is based on the indigenous PHWR technology and 620 MW on foreign technical cooperation using LWR technology.

Two 1000 MWe units of the Kudankulam nuclear power project built with assistance from Russia also use LWR reactors  while three more sites are being readied for setting up projects deploying LWRs of three different types — the French EPRs (1650MWe of Areva), Toshiba Westinghouse’s AP1000 and GE-Hitachi’s ESBWR.