Russia said on 4 September that it is planning to construct more than 20 nuclear power units in India in the next two decades. The announcement came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Vladivostok for the 20th annual summit meeting.
"Russia and India today signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) in various sectors, including civil nuclear and LNG,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Regarding the Kundakulam nuclear power plant, the first and second units are working. The third and fourth are under construction. In addition, we have also decided to set up more than 20 Russian-designed nuclear units in India in the next 20 years," he said.
A source in Rosatom said, “Nuclear component shipments for Kudankulam unit 3 and unit 4 are currently ongoing while shipments for units 5 and 6 are likely to start next year.”
Kudankulam is expected to host six Russian VVER-1000 reactors with an installed capacity of 1000MW each. Kudankulam 1 was connected to the power grid in October 2013 and unit 2 in August 2016. The Indo-Russian delegation also held a technical consultation on advanced Russian-designed VVER-1200 reactors.
The two leaders also discussed the possibility of joint production of nuclear fuel in India. The talks came weeks after Oleg Grigoryev, vice-president of Russian fuel company TVEL (part of state nuclear corporation Rosatom), said that his company was looking forward to assembling nuclear fuel rods in India.
