Areva chairperson Anne Lauvergeon in Delhi. (AFP)

New Delhi, Feb. 4: India’s Nuclear Power Corporation today inked a pact with France’s Areva to set up a series of 1,650MW reactors which will be the highest capacity nuclear electricity plants in India.

The memorandum of understanding between the NPC and Areva will pave the way for detailed negotiations to set up at least two and up to six 1,650MW nuclear reactors at Jaitapur, Maharashtra.

The NPC now runs 17 nuclear reactors with an installed capacity of 4,120MW, and five more nuclear reactors under construction will add 2,660MW. India’s largest reactors currently in operation at Tarapur, Maharashtra, have a capacity of 540MW.

The India-US nuclear deal finalised last year and the safeguard agreements that India has signed with the International Atomic Energy Agency have cleared the way for India to expand its nuclear power capacity through imports.

The 1,650MW reactors will allow India to significantly increase its installed nuclear capacity within the next five to eight years. “We hope to start with the construction of two reactors and progressively add more,” a senior NPC official said.

Areva’s project to build a similar-sized plant in Finland has experienced delays. But officials are hoping that India’s own experience in building plants coupled with Areva’s capabilities are unlikely to lead to delays here.

“From the first pour of concrete to commissioning, we expect it to take five years,” the official said. The NPC plans to borrow 70 per cent of the construction costs and generate 30 per cent from its own internal resources.

A break-up of components and equipment to be imported and those that could be procured locally is yet to be negotiated, the official said.

“We’ll have to involve local industries to keep the costs of nuclear electricity competitive,” said Sudhinder Thakur, executive director, corporate planning, NPC. “We would like to progressively increase the indigenous content from the first to the last unit.”

The capital cost of setting up the foreign reactors is still to be negotiated. But sources said it could be somewhere around a ballpark figure of Rs 10 crore per megawatt. Areva itself could be a possible source of fuel for the reactors.

A 1,650MW reactor will require about 35 to 40 tonnes of low-enriched uranium as fuel each year, Thakur said.

The MoU signed today by Shreyans Jain, the NPC chairman, and Anne Lauvergeon, the chairperson of Areva, follows a bilateral deal finalised by India and France on September 30 for collaboration in the nuclear power sector.