The Hindu Business Line : Local manufacturing key norm for selecting reactor vendors

New Delhi, Nov. 9 Technology transfer to a local partner and joint manufacturing in India are among the key prerequisites that the Centre is insisting on prior to selecting foreign reactor vendors for new generation Light Water Reactor (LWR) capacities likely to come up in the country.

State-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), which is currently involved in formal negotiations with four short-listed foreign reactor vendors, hopes to facilitate the formation of joint ventures involving selected global vendors and domestic equipment manufacturing firms for local manufacture of LWRs.

Domestic firms

Areva NP of France, GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse Electric and Russian firm Atomstroyexport are the four short-listed firms. BHEL and L&T are among the domestic firms in the race for a tie-up with the selected vendors.

“NPCIL will act as a facilitator and play a major role in the assimilation of Light Water Reactor technology. At least two vendors are likely to be selected in the first round… It is being made necessary for the selected foreign energy firms to manufacture nuclear equipment in India,” a Government official involved in the exercise said.

Besides the domestic manufacturing clause, costing and safety are the other major issues being looked at during the ongoing negotiations, the official said

Private sector engineering major L&T is already looking at the possibility of manufacturing reactors and core equipment and is in the fray for tie-ups with a foreign company for the new generation LWR designs.

Supplier

L&T has been associated with the Indian nuclear power programme and the engineering major has been supplying equipment, systems and services to NPCIL for nearly all the Candu-type Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors that have been indigenously built.

These include manufacture of critical equipment, including reactor (calandria), end-shields, stem generators, primary heat transport system and heat exchangers.

State-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), which is the other frontrunner for equipment manufacturing, has already tied-up with NPCIL for setting up a joint venture company, which will carry out engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) activities for nuclear plants earlier this year.

BHEL has designed, manufactured and commissioned equipment of various ratings for nearly 3,280 MWe (mega watt electrical) of NPCIL’s current installed capacity of 4,120 MWe.

Toshiba-owned Westinghouse Electric’s AP1000 reactor series, GE-Hitachi’s ABWR reactors, Areva’s European Pressurised Reactors (EPR) and the Russian VVER 1000 (V-392) reactors are among the reactor-types short-listed by NPCIL based on “suitability” of technical parameters for placement of orders in the first phase.

NPCIL is looking to set up ‘Nuclear Parks’ or reactor clusters, each with a capacity to house up to eight reactors of 1,000 MWe (mega watt electrical) or six reactors of 1600 MWe at a single location.

The orders would initially be placed for two reactors at each of the locations, following which more reactors could be added at the same site, officials said.

Preliminary work on a couple of sites - Jaitapur in Maharashtra and Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu - is likely to be off the block first.

The other locations where imported Light Water Reactors are expected to come up are Pati Sonapur in Orissa and coastal sites in Saurashtra in Gujarat, in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.