Launch of Kudankulam NPP's second unit delayed again
MOSCOW. Aug 12 (Interfax) - The power launch of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant's (NPP) second unit is once again being postponed, now until June 2014, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, which is the client for the NPP's construction, said on its website.
This is not the first time the launch has been delayed. The second power unit was previously scheduled for launch in March 2014, and prior to that it was supposed to be brought online at the end of 2013.
The first unit also underwent multiple delays. It reached first criticality on July 13, being launched at minimum controlled reactor power. Originally, it was supposed to be commissioned in 2011.
The Kudankulam NPP is being built under a Russian-Indian agreement signed November 20, 1988 and addenda to it signed June 21, 1998. Construction of the first two generating units with VVER-1000 reactors with combined capacity of 2,000 MW began in 2002 under the management of Atomstroyexport (ASE), which is now a division of state nuclear corporation Rosatom.
Fuel began to be loaded into the reactor of the first unit on September 19, 2012 and was completed in early October 2012.
