India designing indigenous pressurized heavy water reactor

PWR will have a capacity of 900 MW.

India's leading atomic energy research organization, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre or BARC, has begun work on designing a 900 MW pressurized heavy water reactor (PWR) after successfully building a 20 MW reactor in Kalpakkam.

BARC director Sekhar Basu said the PWR will be called the Indian Pressurized Water Reactor (IPWR). He also said it may take some 10 years to build IPWR since the capability of Indian industries to participate in the project has to be assessed.

He noted it is easier to build bigger reactors than smaller ones and that India has now mastered PWR technology.

PWR reactors were first built to power nuclear submarines with larger versions built later on. PWR uses enriched uranium as fuel and ordinary water as coolant and moderator.

BARC has a functioning PWR with a capacity of 20 MW at Kalpakkam. The nuclear reactor for the Indian ballistic nuclear submarine, INS Arihant, was designed and built based on the reactor at Kalpakkam.