Nuclear Power Technology Development Section
NUCLEAR DESALINATION
India
National Projects:
Desalination Unit Construction at Kalpakkam
International Projects: CRP-1 on "Optimization of coupling of nuclear reactor and desalination systems"
- Inter-Regional Projects: none
India is setting up a 6300 m3/d combined MSF-RO Nuclear Desalination Demonstration Plant (NDDP) connected to the two 170 MWe PHWR units at Kalpakkam. Civil and electrical works have been almost completed. The tenders for all the major equipment of this plant have been released and are under various stages of fabrication and procurement. Different alternatives for seawater intake system were looked into. Bathymetric analysis for independent seawater intake was carried out. It was finalized to take seawater from the outfall of the process water heat exchanger of the power station, which has less biofouling potential. Steam system was also finalized and routing through the power station was decided. Tenders for the seawater intake and outfall system and steam system have been released. Installation work at NDDP site is progressing well.
Useful design data is expected from this plant on the coupling of a PHWR with a hybrid desalination plant. The RO part of the NDDP was commissioned in October, 2002. The MSF part is expected to be commissioned in December 2004. India will share operation and maintenance experience of the NDDP with Member States when the plant is commissioned.
Pilot Plant at BARC
India has an active programme to study the possible use of waste heat from a heavy water research reactor and PHWR by coupling low temperature evaporation (LTE) desalination systems for seawater desalination. A small plant earlier established in the Desalination Division, BARC, is shifted to the CIRUS research reactor for coupling. The plant was commissioned in December 2003. The data from this pilot plant will be useful for design of a larger desalination plant at a PHWR for the production of process water.
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Last modified: September, 2004