Units will be first in a series of indigenous PHWRs
India’s Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL) has received an order from state nuclear company Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) worth about $1.5bn (€1.3bn) for the construction of two nuclear plants in Karnataka, in the southwest of the country.
The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for Kaiga-5 and -6 is Hyderabad-based MEIL’s first major step into the nuclear energy sector, press reports in India said.
The units will be part of a series of 10 Indian-designed 700 MW pressurised heavy water reactors to be built in “fleet mode”, designed to bring economies of scale and maximise efficiency.
Excavation works for the units began in May 2022. Indian engineering company Larsen & Toubro has already manufactured and dispatched four of the eight steam generators for the units.
New Delhi is bullish on nuclear and has said it aims to have an installed capacity of 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047, a massive increase from the current level of around 6.9 GW and on recent targets of 22.4 GW by 2032.
NPCIL said last year that India plans to add 18 more nuclear reactors to its national energy mix by 2031-32, bringing the total nuclear power capacity of the country to 22.4 GW, a significant increase from around 6.9 GW net today.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, India has six commercial nuclear plants under construction. It has 21 in commercial operation which provided 3.1% of the country’s electricity generation in 2023.
