Saturday, April 29 2006 15:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: India's second indigenious nuclear power plant at Tarapore is likely to go critical by middle of next month as the fuel bundle loading process was completed today (Apr 29, 2006).

With the criticality of the second 540 MW nuclear reactor at Tarapore, the country's total installed capacity of nuclear energy will go up to 3,890 MW from the existing 3,350 MW of electricity, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd officials told sources here.

"The process of loading 5,096 fuel bundles (392 channels with 13 bundles each) was completed today, which is a major task before proceeding for the criticality," they said.

This will be followed by air-hold and helium leak testing of coolent channels. Then heavy water will be injected into Primary Heat Transport System (PHTS), they added. After getting clearence upto this stage, from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), the engineers will add heavy water into the moderator system of the reactor. The entire process will take another 8-10 days, which will be followed by final clearence from AERB, the officials said.

The engineers and the nuclear scienctists at Tarapore and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre are also carrying out number of physics experiments.