Chennai: The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd is hopeful of soon getting clearance from the sectoral regulator to fuel the first reactor at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP), a senior official said Sunday.
“We had two detailed meetings with Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) Friday and Saturday. We hope to get a positive response from AERB in a week’s time-by coming Saturday or Sunday,” SA Bhardwaj, director (Technical) told IANS from Mumbai over the phone.
According to him, NPCIL is not working towards any specific date like Aug 15 (Independence Day) to load the 163 fuel assemblies into the 1,000 MW light water reactor (LWR) supplied by Russia.
“Prior to the loading of the fuel we have to put in some components into the reactor. We will do that after getting AERB’s nod to load the fuel. The process may take couple of days. We do not want to fix the components without the regulator’s nod. We hope AERB would not ask to do us some more tests,” Mr Bhardwaj added.
“After getting the AERB nod we have to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about moving the fuel from the stores to the reactor. It is up to IAEA to send a person or not to oversee the process,” Mr Bharadwaj said.
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