The fuel shortage situation has started telling on the performance of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL). Currently operating nuclear power stations with a capacity of around 4,000 MWe, it has been forced to slash power production levels.

• The overall plant load factor (PLF) has come down from a high of 80-90 per cent to around 60 per cent in some three years — a drop of 30 per cent when there’s power shortage in the country.

• Despite commissioning new reactors for power generation, income from sale of power has remained stagnant at around Rs 3,000 crore for the past three years — NPCIL calls it “mismatch” in demand and supply of fuel.

• NPCIL Chairman-cum-Managing Director S K Jain says the fuel shortage-led fall in PLF has already resulted in a loss of Rs 800 crore potential revenue.

While NPCIL officials do not openly admit that there could be closure of units in case supplies of uranium are not augmented, they do say that the current situation is “very bad”. A delay in the commissioning of the milling system (the process by which the mined ore is finally converted into “yellow cake” for use in the reactors) at the Jaduguda mines in Jharkhand is a major factor behind the current fuel shortage.

Jain told The Indian Express that they expect this system to be operational in a few months which would improve the fuel supply situation. But he also said that “there is a theoretical possibility of further delays in the commissioning” which would then lead to a situation of NPCIL cutting generation further “from 18 reactors” to around “50-55 per cent” in the next few months.

The accompanying chart shows how generation levels (reflected through capacity factors) from individual units have fallen in just one year. PLF of Unit 4 of Tarapur dipped from 70 per cent in 2005-06 to 42 per cent the next year; PLF of three units of RAPs fell from above 78 per cent to 62-69 per cent. The pace at which generation has dipped is one indication that if the fuel supply situation does not improve, generation from some units can stop in the next one or to two years.

Implementing the nuclear deal at the earliest is also important for NPCIL projects in the pipeline. The Prime Minister last Tuesday told Lok Sabha that keeping in mind the country’s three-stage nuclear power programme “”indigenous supplies of uranium are highly inadequate and hence we need to source uranium supply from elsewhere”.

The NPCIL plans to add another 700 MWe of power capacity in the next year (at Kaiga and Rajasthan Atomic Power Station) and hopes that the required fuel will come from the Lambapur project in Andhra Pradesh. But even assuming that Lambapur delivers, Jain said India’s nuclear power cannot go beyond 4,700 MWe capacity unless other sources of fuel are found. The government wants to reach 10,000 MWe by the end of the XIth Plan (March 2012) and about 20,000 MWe by 2020.