US cos focus on India for lower cost nuke plants

NEW DELHI: In order to bring down the implementation cost of a nuclear power plant, American companies are considering to indigenize the maximum permissible parts of a plant. Not only this, to make use of the cost effective manufacturing base of India, they would like to use India to procure equipment for their power plants abroad.

Donald L Roderick, senior V-P of GE Hitachi, which will implement a 10,000 MW nuclear power plant in India, said the company will indigenize up to 70% of the equipment used in the nuclear power plant provided it is allowed by the US government.

US companies need an approval from their government to build a power plant in India. For this, both the countries have to arrive at an agreement over rights of reprocessing the burnt fuel.

But, instead of waiting for the governments’ approval, US companies are tying up with various Indian companies so that they could expedite the implementation process once the governments’ approval is secured.

Roderick said GE-Hitachi is working to prepare the ground so that if the company receives approval from the US government next year, the first unit can be commissioned by 2018-19. ‘‘After that every two years new units would follow,” he said. The company would put up plants with seven units of 1,550 MW each.

Roderick said that as the indigenization will increase, the cost of putting up a plant will come down. The 70% indigenization, he said, could bring down the cost of implementation by 50%. GE Hitachi is in talks with domestic companies like Larsen Toubro, Bhel and Bharat Forge for making various equipments for the plants.

Similarly, another US-based company, Westinghouse also is in discussion with NPCIL for supplying equipment for its plant in India. Westinghouse will implement another 10,000 MW nuclear power plant in India. ‘‘We are in preliminary talks with NPCIL for supply of equipment,” said Robert T Pearce, diretor, WestingHouse, international customer project development.