GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) has signed preliminary agreements in India with Tata Consulting Engineers, Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC), Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and Larsen & Toubro for involvement in India’s nuclear capacity addition programme.
Under these preliminary agreements, GEH and its Indian partners would explore ways to bring the respective expertise, resources and areas of strength to projects that utilise GEH’s particular reactor technology, the ESBWR, with a rated output of 1,520 Mw.
Kishore Jayaraman, GE Energy’s India Region Executive, told Business Standard they’d been talking to NPC for a year. “There are ongoing discussions for six-plus ESBWR units at a designated site, with a desired commercial operation date of approximately 2019 for the first unit,” he said. Jayaraman recalled that some of the first commercial nuclear units India ever set up, at Tarapur, used GE technology and are today one of the lowest in operating cost in NPC’s system.
On the civil nuclear liability issue, Jayaraman said said GEH hoped it would be resolved and the benefits of the historic agreement to support nuclear power development between India and the US governments would be realised.
