Rajya Sabha hears on agreement between NPCIL and EDF of France

New Delhi, April 6: There are currently four Evolutionary Pressurized Reactors (EPRs) under construction viz. Olkiluoto-3 in Finland, Flamanville-3 in France and Taishan 1 and 2 in China said Dr. Jitendra Singh MoS Atomic Energy and Space in Rajya Sabha to a question asked about it.

Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and Electricite de France (EDF) of France have on March 10, 2018, signed an Industrial Way Forward Agreement for implementation of six nuclear power reactor units at Jaitapur, Maharashtra with a total capacity of about 10,000 MW.

The EPRs are evolutionary reactors, whose design has evolved from “KONVOI’ and “N4’ reactors which have been in operation in Germany and France respectively for about two decades. Further, the work at Jaitapur will be commenced only on demonstration of full power operation of Flamanville-3 under construction in France, as reference plant, to have an operationally proven technology.

There have been reports that the four reactors are delayed. There is a delay in execution of the project and this is not attributable to the technology itself.