India's 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor or PFBR is at 'an advanced stage' of completion, Ratan Sinha, chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission said on 28 June.
"All the major equipment of the PFBR has been erected and the loading of dummy fuel bundles at peripheral locations is in progress," Sinha said in his address to the international ministerial conference 'Nuclear Power in the 21st Century,' in St. Petersburg.
Sinha also noted that indigenously developed mixed-oxide fuel pins for the first core of the PFBR are being manufactured.
According to BHAVINI, which is responsible for the construction of PFBR, work was 95% completed at the end of May 2013 and first criticality was envisaged by September 2014.
Sinha also confirmed that unit 1 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, which is being build in cooperation with the Russian Federation is in an 'advanced stage of commissioning,' and that work is progressing on four indigenously designed 700 MW pressurized heavy water reactors at sites in Gujarat and Rajasthan. He said that India is also planning to set up pressurized water reactors of indigenous design by the mid 2020s.
