KARACHI, March 14: The Director, Division of Nuclear Power of International Atomic energy Agency (IAEA), Akira Omoto, on Monday said IAEA would continue helping Pakistan in the field of nuclear safety by providing advice, guidance, sending expert missions and holding training workshops.
Talking to newsmen at the sidelines of four-day IAEA National Workshop on Effective Outage Management here at a local hotel, he said Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) had a very good track record of safeguards and safety standards with regard to nuclear power generation.
The workshop was jointly organized by Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and the IAEA and it was addressed by Qamarul Hoda, GM KANUPP, Eberhard Grauf, an IAEA expert, Deputy Plant Managers and senior managers of KNPC, CHASNUPP and Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA). The
workshop is part of IAEA Regional Asia Technical Cooperation Project “Manage-
ment of Changes for the competitive Nuclear Power Performance”.
On the occasion, the IAEA director expressed the hope that Pakistan would continue according top priority to safe operation of its nuclear facilities.
He informed that first nuclear power plant of the world was connected to the grid on June 26, 1954 and 50 years later, today 441 nuclear power plants were generating over 367GW of electricity.
“India has 14 nuclear power plants and is constructing 9 more such units. China is currently operating 9 units and constructing two more, Korea is operating 20 units and constructing 8 more units while Japan have 54 such plants and 3 more are under construction” he informed.
About the mission statement of the Department of Nuclear Energy of the IAEA, he said that it was aimed at supporting the member states in establishing, maintaining and strengthening nuclear power and science, fuel cycle and waste management with due regard to safety, security and non-proliferation.
Mr Omoto pointed out that the three pillars that constitute the Agency’s mandate were science and technology, safety and security and verification.
He said that the agency was also working as repository of information and providing various databases such as Power Reactor Information System (PRIS), International Nuclear Information System (INIS) and material and design database.
In the next step, the IAEA would publish DS 338 next year and all other safety standards on management systems in 2006-07.
On the occasion, he refused to comment on nuclear activities of Iran, saying his division had nothing to do with such activities.
Earlier, in his welcome address, the General Manager of Karachi Nuclear Power Complex, M Qamarul Huda, pointed out that as per the requirements of the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) some safety systems of KANUPP were being upgraded.
He said that the safety upgrades planned to include the installation of additional redundancy in the emergency coolant injection system of coolant injection in case of LOCA and further added that with these changes this nuclear power plant of the 60s’ would achieve all the modern safety requirements of a CANDU plant.
Mr Huda remarked that the importance of an effective outage management and its optimization could not be over-emphasised. A plant outage can be very expensive and time-consuming in any organization mainly due to loss of production and immense expense.
He said planning was the most vital stage of an outage process. A thorough plan was absolutely necessary for a trouble-free outage.
Mr Huda informed that the KANUPP completed its design life of 30 years in Dec 2002 and then went through a 14-month long re-licensing outage during which extensive refurbishing and up gradation was carried out.
The more notable activity included the replacement of the old and outdated plant control system and most of the related instrumentation.
All these re-licensing activities were carried out indigenously except coolant tube inspection which was carried out with the help of Canada.
Mr Huda further informed that the government was
planning to set up ano-
ther nuclear power plant (KANUPP Unit-2) in Karachi after the completion of Chashma Unit-II in Mianwali, for which contract had been signed with China.
He said that the said nuclear power plant (KANUPP Unit-2) would either consist of an electricity producing unit of 600 megawatts or two units of 300 megawatts.
Mr Huda further told that IAEA experts regularly visits KANUPP after every three months to monitor the performance of plant and safety measures taken by the plant management.
“We also get it monitored from other international nuclear agencies for our satisfaction and to bring it at par with international safety standards” he added.
He maintained that currently, KANUPP was being operated at 45 per cent of its full capacity of electricity production on directives from the PNRA and after up gradation of some more safety systems, maintenance and addition of equipment by June 2006, it would operate at “higher power levels” for the next 15 years.
Mr Huda said there was a plan to come up with the K-2 project which would be in Karachi to generate electricity capacity up to 600 megawatts.
However, he made it clear that it would be pre-mature to say anything about the capacity at the moment.—PPI/APP