Nuclear Reactors 330 - Problems at the Indian Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant
Historically, India contracted with Canada for the construction of nuclear reactors. The former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board in India, A Gopalakrishnan, said in an interview with the Times of India that the India-Canadian relationship was quite successful. “We had a relationship with Canada – they kept 150 engineers of ours for almost three years in Canada, telling us about their computer codes, how they are analyzing, etc. We learned through tutorials and then we installed 20-odd reactors [of Canadian design]."
Things did not go as smoothly when the Indians contracted with Russia for the construction of two reactors based on Russian designs at the Indian Kudankulam nuclear power plant. The first reactor reached criticality in July of 2013. The reactor was connected to the Indian national electrical grid in October of 2013. However, it was more than a year later in December of 2014 before the reactor actually began to function as a commercial source of power. In six months, the reactor had to be shut down for what was expected to be a two month outage but actually developed into a seven month outage.
Gopalakrishnan said that many of the problems stemmed from a desire to do as much of the work as possible with Indian engineers being directed by Indian supervisors with a "made in Indian" attitude. The Russian consultants were rarely consulted. Gopalakrishnan went on to say that many Indian components were used at Kudankulam. An early priority was to keep costs down. Indian quality control for materials was also not adequate.
One example of the difficulties at Kudankulam involved the electrical wiring for the plant. Some of the work done followed Canadian practices because India had built so many reactors with Canadian designs and Canadian assistance. Some work had to be redone because the Russia approach turned out to be significantly different than the Canadian approach and there was electromagnetic interference when the equipment was turned on.
Gopalakrishnan pointed out that the Russians had had great success in building nuclear reactors in China because of the concept of a "reference plant." “The Russians took 100 percent responsibility -- brought their own equipment , selected Chinese engineers who were working there, but the Russians had complete control over them. All liability was initially with Russians. And after two or three years of satisfactory operation, as Russian reactors, they became Chinese plants.” Gopalakrishnan suggested that things would have gone better for the construction of the Kudankulam reactors if India had followed the same procedure as the Chinese in contracting Russian assistance.
I have often blogged about my concern over the boom in sales of nuclear reactors on the international market. When a country such as France, Russia, Japan or China contracts with a foreign nation for the construction of nuclear power reactors, it is not just a matter of the quality of the components or the integrity of the design or the technical expertise of the country providing the nuclear technology. The culture, government and attitude of the country buying the reactor is also very important. Arrogance, incompetence and/or corruption can cause serious problems even with the best design, components and consultants.
Kudankulam nuclear power plant:
