Russia offers new nuke fuel assembly for Kudankulam nuke plants

C Shivakumar 

Chennai:

The nuclear plants in Kudankulam could soon be operating on a new fuel assembly which could boost the efficiency if the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board gives its clearance, according to Russian fuel company based in Moscow.
Oleg Grigoriev, vice-president of JSC TVEL, a subsidiary of Russian State Energy Nuclear Corporation (ROSATOM) said in an e-mail interview that Russia is willing to offer modern design of nuclear fuel for the Kudankulam atomic plants.
“We are ready to change the Kudankulam nuclear power plant’s fuel as per the requirements of Indian regulator Atomic Energy regulatory Board for substantiation of reliability and security of fuel assemblies,” said Grigoriev.
Russia now supplies almost a fifth of the world’s nuclear fuel. TVEL’s fuel development programmes for Russian-designed VVER light water reactors in Russia and abroad aim to increase the service life, burn-up and cost effectiveness of its fuel assemblies.
Russia feels the only restriction of supplying the advanced nuclear fuel assemblies is the agreement over supply of UTVS fuel, which is currently being supplied to Kudankulam nuclear plant. “The agreement for supply of UTVS fuel is for a period of three to four years by both the parties. Once this agreement phase gets over then the nuclear power plant will be run on TVS-2M, a more modern design of nuclear fuel,” said Grigoriev
If India works out a formula then then the transfer to new nuclear fuel will take place faster, says Grigoriev. “The new nuclear fuel will save 60-70 operational days in around three years,” he said, adding that the plant would not face any difficulties once the new fuel assembly gets clearance.
To a query on localisation of nuclear fuel assemblies in India, Grigoriev said that India is planning to increase the number of Russian reactors to 12. “We are ready to help India in the localisation of the production of nuclear fuel. But it should be understood that the plant should be cost-effective. We have repeatedly carried out economic calculations and estimated the number of blocks into which the plant is to supply fuel to make it profitable. The result together with regional and country specificity ranged from 10 to 12 units,” he said.
He also hoped that in the next 10 years, the first components produced in India will be used in the fuel for Indian nuclear power plants.

 

Factfile;
1. Pressurised water reactors (PWRs) are the most common type of nuclear reactor accounting for two-thirds of current installed nuclear generating capacity worldwide.
2. Most of PWRs use the uranium fuel, which is in the form of uranium dioxide.
3. Uranium dioxide (UO2) is a black semiconducting solid with very low thermal conductivity.
4. The UO2 is pressed into pellets, these pellets are then sintered into the solid.
5. These pellets are then loaded and encapsulated within a fuel rod (or fuel pin), which is made of zirkonium alloys due to its very low absorbtion
6. The collection of fuel rods or elements is called the fuel assembly.
7. The fuel assembly constitute the base element of the nuclear reactor core.
8. The reactor core (PWR type) contains about 157 fuel assemblies (depending on a reactor type)