Nuclear Power in India as on June 2016

(Updated June 2016)

• India has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear power programme and expects to have 14.6 GWe nuclear capacity on line by 2024 and 63 GWe by 2032. It aims to supply 25% of electricity from nuclear power by 2050.
• Because India is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty due to its weapons programme, it was for 34 years largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant or materials, which has hampered its development of civil nuclear energy until 2009.
• Due to earlier trade bans and lack of indigenous uranium, India has uniquely been developing a nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its reserves of thorium.
• Since 2010, a fundamental incompatibility between India’s civil liability law and international conventions limits foreign technology provision.
• India has a vision of becoming a world leader in nuclear technology due to its expertise in fast reactors and thorium fuel cycle.

India’s primary energy consumption more than doubled between 1990 and 2011 to nearly 25,000 PJ. India's dependence on imported energy resources and the inconsistent reform of the energy sector are challenges to satisfying rising demand.

The 2015 edition of BP’s Energy Outlookprojected India’s energy production rising by 117% to 2035, while consumption grows by 128%. The country’s energy mix evolves very slowly over the next 22 years with fossil fuels accounting for 87% of demand in 2035, compared with a global average of 81% (down from 92% today). Oil remains the dominant fuel (36%) followed by gas (30%) and coal (21%). CO2 emissions from energy consumption increase by 115%.

Electricity demand in India is increasing rapidly, and the 1193 TWh gross produced in 2013 was more than triple the 1990 output, though still represented only some 750 kWh per capita for the year. With large transmission losses – 220 TWh (18.4%) in 2013 – this resulted in only about 890 TWh consumption. Overall transmission and distribution losses are put at 26% by the Power Engineers Society. Gross generation in 2013 comprised 697 TWh from black coal, 170 TWh from brown coal, 65 TWh from gas, 23 TWh from oil, 34 TWh from nuclear, 142 TWh from hydro and 80 TWh from other renewables. Coal provides almost three-quarters of the electricity at present, but reserves are effectively limited* – in 2013, 159 million tonnes was imported, and 533 million tonnes produced domestically. The per capita electricity consumption figure is expected to double by 2020, with 6.3% annual growth, and reach 5000-6000 kWh by 2050, requiring about 8000 TWh/yr then. There is an acute demand for more reliable power supplies. One-third of the population is not connected to any grid.

* Quoted resources are 293 billion tonnes, but much of this is in forested areas of eastern India – Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and West Bengal. While the first three of these are the main producing states, nevertheless permission to mine is problematical and infrastructure limited.

At mid-2012, 203 GWe was on line with 20.5 GWe having been added in 12 months. In September 2012 it had 211 GWe. The government's 12th five-year plan for 2012-17 is targeting the addition of 94 GWe over the period, costing $247 billion. Three quarters of this would be coal- or lignite-fired, and only 3.4 GWe nuclear, including two imported 1000 MWe units planned at one site and two indigenous 700 MWe units at another. By 2032 total installed capacity of 700 GWe is planned to meet 7-9% GDP growth, and this was to include 63 GWe nuclear. The OECD’s International Energy Agency predicts that India will need some $1600 billion investment in power generation, transmission and distribution to 2035.

India has five electricity grids – Northern, Eastern, North-Eastern, Southern and Western. All of them are interconnected to some extent, except the Southern grid. All are run by the state-owned Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCI), which operates more than 95,000 circuit km of transmission lines. In July 2012 the Northern grid failed with 35,669 MWe load in the early morning, and the following day it plus parts of two other grids failed again so that over 600 million people in 22 states were without power for up to a day.

A KPMG report in 2007 said that transmission and distribution (T&D) losses were worth more than $6 billion per year. A 2012 report costed the losses as $12.6 billion per year. A 2010 estimate shows big differences among states, with some very high, and a national average of 27% T&D loss, well above the target 15% set in 2001 when the average figure was 34%. Installed transmission capacity was only about 13% of generation capacity.

India’s priority is economic growth and to alleviate poverty. The importance of coal means that CO2 emission reduction is not a high priority, and the government has declined to set targets ahead of the 21st Conference of the Parties on Climate Change to be held in Paris in 2015. The environment minister in September 2014 said it would be 30 years before India would be likely to see a decrease in CO2emissions.