Chinese products not up to the mark

Madurai:?Kudan­kulam nuclear power plant station director R.S. Sundar has warned against importing Chinese equipment for power generation, stating that their quality was not up to the mark and they get damaged even before commissioning.

“The Chinese thermal equipment get damaged even before commissioning. The solar power equipment is equally bad. In some cases, they get damaged during transportataion,” he said, addressing a three-day conference on ‘Power and Energy Systems’ here.

He said the country should think of depending on its own equipment, especially given the fact that power generation needed to touch 6 lakh MW. “It is not good if everything is imported or assembled in India.”

Citing his experience, he said if one wanted to purchase a 6 KV motor, it was not available India. Engineers and industry here should gear up to manufacture equipment to meet the needs of the country, he stressed.

Sundar said international delegates were surprised when they learnt VVER plant at KKNP was being operated fully by Indians, though all the equipment, except steel and cement, was imported from Russia.

On the power situation in Tamil Nadu,he said there was not only shortage but quality of power supplied was also poor. Sundar was confident the first unit of KKNPP would generate 700 MW by January 2014 and Tamil Nadu would get around 460 MW.

He said options on increasing power generation was limited as there was no land for hydroelectric power and thermal power was not clean. Countries like China were setting up 29 nuclear power plants, while india was setting up only seven.

“Though there are no problems in the first two units of KKNP, we are not able to move ahead with the third and fourth units due to various factors like liability factor,” he said.

N. Murugesan, director general of central power research institute, said the private sector would play a major role in power generation in the 12th five-year plan when the sector was expected to grow by 8-9 per cent.

The country aimed to generate 9-10 lakh MW by 2040 and about Rs13,72,580 crore would be invested in the sector in the 12th five-year plan, he said, adding that electrical engineers would be needed for that.