Third refuelling, maintenance outage begins at KKNPP-2

A scheduled outage ofUnit-2 of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) forcarrying out annual maintenance and refuelling has begun, atop official said here on Friday.

The planned closedown of the second unit commenced onJanuary 20 for replacement of used fuel in the reactor withfresh fuel assemblies, KKNPP Site Director S V Jinna said.

KKNPP-2, a 1000-MW VVER (water-cooled water-moderatedreactor) that belongs to the Pressurised Water Reactorcategory, uses uranium oxide fuel to generate electricity.

''The unloading of spent fuel from the reactor core andloading of fresh fuel will be carried out with the help of asophisticated and fully automated refuelling machine,'' theDirector said in a statement.

Also, various maintenance activities of systems andequipment and all the scheduled surveillance tests would beconducted, he said, adding, all the safety systems shall alsobe tested as per the regulatory norms.

After completion of the second refuelling outage,KKNPP-2 was connected back to grid on March 14, 2020.

Since then, the unit supplied 6,709 million units ofelectricity before being shutdown for the third refuellingoutage. The other operating unit, KKNPP-1, at the Kudankulamsite is running at its full capacity.

The nuclear power plant is situated at Kudankulam inTirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.

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