India’s Madras Atomic Station to resume operations

Two reactors of the Madras Atomic Power Station are scheduled to be restared by end of August.

Located in Kalpakkam, about 70km from the Indian city of Chennai, the reactors were shut down after a power supply breaker tripped, leading to a power cut on 19 August.

It is operated by Nuclear Power Corporation of India.

"The reactor's automatic shutdown process was triggered. Both reactors shut down their operations,"said MAPS station director, K Ramamurthy.

Immediately after power cut, four standby diesel generators became operational.

"There was no sudden surge in power generation or supply that resulted in the breaker to fail," Ramamurthy added. "We have 11 such breakers and have replaced six units. Each component costs about Rs.20 lakh."

The shutdown, however, did not affect the fast breeder test reactor and the mini reactor Kamini located at Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research.

The construction of the 500MW prototype fast breeder reactor by Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam at Kalpakkam was also not affected by the halt in operations.

For more.