Government targets 59,500 MW n-power by 2032

KOLKATA - The union government has set an ambitious target to generate 35,000 MW nuclear energy by 2020 and 59,500 MW by 2032, a top government official said Monday.

“Altogether five nuclear parks, each having generation capacity of nearly 10,000 MW, will be set up across the country to meet the nuclear energy target,” Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Srikumar Banerjee said here.

“These parks will be set up at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu, Jaitapur in Maharashtra, Mithivindhi in Gujarat, Haripur in West Bengal and Kovada in Andhra Pradesh,” Banerjee said during an interactive session on Role of Basic Research in Atomic Energy Programme, organised by the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) here.

He said the nuclear park at Koodankulam would be coming up shortly. Banerjee said the land acquisition for the Jaitapur project was on. Russia and France were providing the nuclear reactors for the nuclear units in Koodankulam and Jaitapur.

Talking about the proposed Haripur nuclear park, he said the environment impact study of the site was already completed and base-line study would be carried out in the next few months.

Banerjee said the group that conducted environmental studies at the Haripur site had pointed out there would be no problem if the plant was set up there.