Kaiga n-plant was shut over false alarm: Official
April 10th, 2011 - 5:00 pm ICT by IANSBangalore, April 10 (IANS) The fire alarm which shut the third reactor of the Kaiga atomic power station Friday was erranous, an official said Sunday, ruling out any fire mishap.
“Preliminary investigation has revealed that it was a false alarm. There was no fire or fuel leakage in the temperature moderator equipment in the reactor. Nothing abnormal was noticed. Everything is safe,” Kaiga power generating station director J.P. Gupta told IANS.
He said the reactor will re-start April 17 after surveillance tests.
“We have decided to re-start the 220 MW third unit and connect the generated power to the grid April 17 after completing the surveillance tests and investigation into the smoke detection alarm that appeared in its control room early Friday,” Gupta said.
Operated by the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd, the Kaiga station has four pressurised heavy water reactors to generate 220 MW of power each.
The highly protected sensitive facility is located near Karwar on the west coast in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, about 500 km from here.
Ruling out any fire mishap, Gupta clarified that the third unit was shut down Friday as a precautionary measure after shift engineers detected the smoke alarm.
Reiterating that safety was the first priority, Gupta allayed fears of any health risk to the employees and assured the people that the unit was safe.
“We are investigating the root cause of the false alarm on all parameters and to find out if there was any equipment failure. I have visited the control room to check the safety measures in place and analyse the data. We found nothing unusual,” Gupta said.
“Though the third reactor was to be shut for the biennial tests and maintenance next month (May), we have decided to conduct them ahead this week and bring back the unit online from next Sunday,” he added.
When re-activated, the 220 MW third reactor will generate only 175 MW of power, as enriched uranium fuel supply is limited and has to be used in the three other reactors proportionately.
“Due to fuel supply constraints, we have been operating the reactors at 75-80 percent of their installed capacity. The output will be increased to 90 percent when we have sufficient stock,” Gupta added.
While the third reactor was commissioned in 2007 and fourth early this year (January). The first two reactors went into commercial operation in 2000.
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Tags: atomic power, equipment failure, false alarm, fuel leakage, fuel supply, generating station, gupta, health risk, heavy water reactors, india ltd, karwar, nuclear power corporation, precautionary measure, preliminary investigation, safety measures, sensitive facility, smoke alarm, smoke detection, station director, uranium fuel