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Holtec International has announced the shipment of the first set of specialised ‘spent fuel storage racks’ for deployment at state-owned NPCIL’s Kudankulam plant, built with Russian technical collaboration. Kudankulam is a six-unit VVER-1000 plant located in Tamil Nadu.
The completed modules, co-produced by Holtec International and its Pune-based Indian subsidiary Holtec Asia, will be installed in ‘a freestanding configuration’ in a new wet storage facility being built at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) site. The hexagonal cross section of the VVER-1000 fuel differentiates from Western Pressurised Water Reactors (PWRs), which are of square cross section, a company statement said. A separate shipment containing a multi-purpose transport cask, co-produced by Holtec International and Holtec Asia featuring ‘radiation-shielding technology’, is also headed to India to be used for transferring the spent fuel stored in Kudankulam’s reactor-building pools to the wet storage facility, the company said. The rack modules and the transport cask are among the key equipment needed to execute fuel management operations at KKNPP.
The fuel rack and cask projects, critically important to KKNPP, have been successfully executed by Holtec Asia with the support of its parent, US-based Holtec International. On March 26, Camden, New Jersey-based Holtec International was accorded an unprecedented regulatory clearance by the US Department of Energy that potentially sets it on course to leverage the commercial potential of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. The approval from DoE effectively cleared Holtec International’s application for specific authorisation with respect to the DoE’s restrictive regulation that is referred to as ‘10CFR810’. This specific authorisation (SA IN2023-001) now conditionally permitted Holtec to transfer “unclassified small modular reactor technology” (SMRs) to its regional subsidiary Holtec Asia, as well as Tata Consulting Engineers Ltd., and Larsen & Toubro Ltd. in India.
“The supply of these complex nuclear components through a close collaborative effort between Holtec (US) and Holtec Asia has given us the opportunity to demonstrate that PM (Narendra) Modi’s plan to elevate India’s manufacturing capacity to world class levels can be realised in full measure by using a systematic approach of technology infusion into the country. We look forward to the passage of the long-awaited act by Lok Sabha that will enable the private sector to contribute to the rise of India’s nuclear power industry and render the country into a global powerhouse in this important energy sector. We eagerly await the opportunity to build our walk-away safe SMR-300 reactor that can be deployed equally well in all regions of the country including the barren land in Ladakh, parched Rajasthan, or the earthquake-vulnerable northern Gangetic plains,” Holtec’s India-born founder and CEO, Krishna P Singh said.
Singh said in the statement that his company is keen to introduce “trailblazer technologies such as synergized power generation by our SMR-300 reactor combined with our concentrated solar plant, to make ‘coal to clean’ transition financially profitable” by uprating the output of former thermal power sites. “Our long duration energy storage device called Holtec Green Boiler is another product that we expect to play a major role in stabilising the nation’s grid,” he said.
