India's Key Evaluation Parameters for SMR Deployment
India is at the cusp of its economic development, growing to be 3rd largest economy by 2027 and further transforming into a developed economy by 2047. To sustain this economic transformation and support its energy transition objectives, there is a massive demand for clean energy in the country. Renewables are coming up in a big way, but considering their intermittency and variability there is a clear support from the key decision makers across the different organizations in the country for major scale up of nuclear capacity through large reactors and small modular reactors.
For large reactors, the country has substantial in-house experience, capabilities and global collaboration agreements with different countries. But for SMRs, country is at a nascent stage of its development and deployment program.
During recent interaction of NBP with Senior Officials from NPCIL and Indian nuclear government stakeholders on SMRs, a clear sense of urgency could be observed for SMR deployment in the country to meet its rapidly increasing demand for clean energy.
To support this nuclear scale-up through SMRs, global collaboration is an essential element. Senior Officials from Indian establishment made it amply clear that India urgently require quick deployment of SMRs in the country and will be evaluating deployment capability for different SMR designs based on following key features and key parameters.
Key evaluation criterias for India SMR deployment
Completely passive system
EPZ requirements
Gestation period
Price/Mw
Regulatory clearances system
Government policy of source country for nuclear cooperation with India
Scalability
Earliest launch date
Comprehensive discussions with key Indian stakeholders on nuclear business opportunities and collaboration formats will be had during the upcoming India NBP 2023 . SMR technology suppliers may put up their business cases during the meeting highlighting above key areas.
The 4th edition of India Nuclear Business Platform (INBP) will take place in Mumbai this 10-11 October. This industry meeting will feature all they officials and players across the Indian nuclear supply chain. Official event partners of this meeting are India’s Department of Atomic Energy and NTPC. More information on this meeting is available here.
