The Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (or KANUPP) is a large commercial nuclear power plant located at the Paradise Point in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
Officially known as Karachi Nuclear Power Complex, the power generation site is composed of three commercial nuclear power plants. The K-1 commenced its criticality operations in 1971 whereas K-2 commenced operations in 2021 with a gross power capacity of 1100 MWt. The K-3, with a design similar to K-2, is due for official commissioning and commenced its criticality operations on 21 February 2022.
The first nuclear power plant, which was later known as K-1, was commissioned with support from Canada whereas K-2 and K-3 have been supported by loans, financing, and investment provided by China and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). After a lengthy and complicated negotiations with Canada, the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant was constructed by Canadian firms in 1965 and it went critical in August 1971 with a smaller CANDU-type reactor– it provided energy and generated electricity to whole city of Karachi. The site is protected and covered under the IAEA monitoring, which also provided funding for the site's expansion.
The nuclear power plant is the first commercial nuclear plant in the Muslim world.
History
In 1960, Abdus Salam, then-science adviser to Ayub administration, provided a strong advocacy for the industrial usage of the nuclear power in his country at the UN General Assembly, paving away a path for the establishment of the nuclear power plant. Despite the strong opposition from the officials in the Ayub administration, it was the personal efforts of Abdus Salam who had the funding and financing of the nuclear power plant approved from President Ayub Khan. In 1963, the Government of Pakistan commissioned the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) to conduct the survey for the nuclear power plant which selected the Paradise Point and Hawke's Bay as the ideal locations— the GSP selected Paradise Point for the location. Negotiations and talks took place with Canada over the supply of the nuclear power plant in Karachi and the contract was signed with General Electric Canada as the designer and employed the Montreal Engineering Company as its civil engineering firm in 1965.
The nuclear power plant was jointly designed by engineers from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and Canada's General Electric to differentiate it from India's nuclear research reactors, such as CIRUS and Dhruva, which also use CANDU technology. The decision-making factor that was taken under consideration to sell the CANDU technology to Pakistan by Canada was seen as maintaining a balance of power between India and Pakistan. In 1966, the civil engineering and construction started by the Montreal Engineering Co. which finished its construction in 1971. The nuclear power plant attained criticality on 1 August 1971, and commenced on producing full power generation on 2 October 1972.
On 28 November 1972, President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto inaugurated the Karachi Nuclear Plant when it was connected with the grid system of K-Electric, an investor-owned energy supply utility based in Karachi.
Initially, Canada, through its contractor GE Canada, supplied the deuterium oxide moderator and the natural uranium but it wanted to eject from supporting the operations of the nuclear power plant after 1974 when India exploded the nuclear bomb whose fissile material was produced in CIRUS reactor initially supplied by Canada.P.L. Bhola, Pakistan's Nuclear Policy (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Limited, 1993), p. 27. In 1975, the GE Canada begin to charge Pakistan $27/lb for deuterium oxide which was expensive for the country's taxpayers to afford.
With Pakistan's refusal of becoming the party of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the GE Canada halted to sell of imported spare parts, natural uranium, heavy water, and technical support for the nuclear power plant, raising fears of Karachi going under a blackout phase in 1976. With Canadian technicians departing the country, the city was exposed to open radioactive materials while estimating that the nuclear power plant would shut down in six months. Despite Canadian scepticism, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission was able to work on producing deuterium oxide at lesser price, and set up the machine shop to manufacture its machinery and tools near nuclear power plant with the assistance from Karachi University.
The Canadian ejection from the project turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it allowed the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission establish its own machine shops, welding facilities, and training centers with the help from Karachi University that proved to be pivotal on country's production of able machinists and qualified welders as well as nuclear fuel cycle technology. Since 1979, the deuterium oxide and heavy water is locally and indigenously produced by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission at the Multan Heavy Water Production Facility that made it possible and kept the plant running its grid operations.
Many of spare parts and machine components were locally designed that kept the nuclear power plant running its grid operation in safe manner– the valuable experience gained was shared to Chinese officials in designing the reactor safety protocols and eventually helped run the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant in 1993.
After intense negotiations and with the IAEA's cooperation in May 1990, Canadian policy towards Karachi Nuclear Power Plant was revised allowing it to provide assistance for Safe Operation of KANUPP (SOK) through the IAEA and only for the IAEA suggested remedial actions.
In 2015 and 2016, China showed great interest in expanding the energy capacity of Karachi Nuclear Power Plant and signed an agreement to supply two Hualong One nuclear power plants with the start of commercial operations scheduled for 2021 and 2022 respectively. Reactor units will have a design life of 60 years and account for approximately 10% of the country's total generation capacity. As of 31 December 2017, the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant has generated 14.2 billion kWhr of electricity and been fueled by thousands of Pakistan-made fuel bundles without any failure.
Reactor technology
KANUPP
The first reactor unit at the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant was a single CANDU-type pressurized heavy-water reactor (PHWR) with a total gross energy generation capacity of 137 Megawatts (MW). It was originally known as "KANUPP"—later classified as K1 in 2010s—that used the water-cooled deuterium oxide (D2O or heavy water) moderator with natural uranium serving it as its fuel. The Multan Heavy Water Production Facility provided the necessary heavy water to Karachi Nuclear Power Plant since 1978
The KANUPP was noted as one of the oldest reactor that used the CANDU-type PHWR system to generate energy from 1971 to 2021. The fuel was natural uranium in the form of sintered uranium dioxide pellets sheathed in thin zirconium alloy tubes to form solid fuel elements about 19.1 inches (48.53 cm) long by 0.6 inches (1.4 cm) diameter.
In 2010, a multi-effect distillation (MED) process source was connected to Karachi Nuclear Power Plant that can produce 1600 m3/d of potable water. In addition, a reverse osmosis plant is also coupled with the nuclear power plant that is producing 454 m3/d of water for reactor usage.
Between 1970 and the 1990s, the KANUPP had generated energy of about ~7.9 billion units of electricity with an average lifetime availability factor of 55.9%. The Canadian technicians designed the life of the plant operations for ~30 years which it did complete its lifetime in 2002."KANUPP Gets 10 Year Extension," Nuclear Engineering International, 16 December 1999. The Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA), the regulator of the nuclear power plant, extended its lifetime operation to 2012 (later to 2021), and kept 55.7% capacity factor with total energy generation of 137 MW.
On 1 August 2021, the Canadian unit, K1, was ceased from its criticality operations and was phased out when it was decommissioning from the national grid system, marking the end of its 50-years of long operational services to the nation.
From 1973 to 1979, K1 had an operation factor of 70.1% and between 2006 and 2021, it was at 55.7%."Pakistan's Karachi nuclear power plant 'back in operation,'" BBC Worldwide Monitoring – South Asia, 4 December 2006; Pakistan
K2 and K3
In 2013, China National Nuclear Corporation secured the turnkey contract to build two ACP1000 reactor units, each producing 1,100 MW. The cost of the project was estimated to be PKR959 billion ($9.6 billion).
The K-2 is a pressurized water reactor (PWR) supplied by the China National Nuclear Corporation, and is jointly designed by the engineers of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. On 26 November 2013, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ceremonially broke ground on an energy project at the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant for the construction of two reactor units, one consisting the Hualong One and the other is ACPR-1000— both are pressurized water reactor. Construction of the KANUPP-2 begins on 20 August 2015 and the KANUPP-3's construction commenced on 31 May 2016. Both units are near completion and are expected to attain full energy capacity in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
According to Dr. Ansar Pervaiz, then Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, said that Chinese banks have provided $6.5 Bn for this project as loans and the cold testing of the reactor system at the KANUPP-2 was commenced on 9 December 2019. KANUPP-2 was synchronised with the electricity grid on 18 March 2021. The China Zhongyuan Engineering Corporation (CZEC) is currently serving its civil engineering consultant for both reactors.
On 2 December 2020, the loading of the nuclear fuel started with the clearance from the Nuclear Regulatory Authority. The criticality operation was successfully commenced on 3 March 2020. On 20 March 2021, the K2 was synchronized with the nation's electricity grid system, with PAEC terming the operation as "Pakistan Day gift" to the nation.
On 28 May 2021, the nuclear power plant was operationalized with nation's energy system and was inaugurated with Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The K3 is also installed with an Hualong One (HPR1000) nuclear reactor supplied by the China National Nuclear Corporation whose construction was commenced on 31 May 2016, being constructed alongside KANUPP-2 and the first steam engine was installed on 28 August 2018.
On 1 January 2022, the fuel loading started, and the nuclear power reactor was connected to the national grid system on 4 March 2022.
K4 and K5
Officials with the PAEC have said they want to add another two reactors at Karachi, possibly Hualong One units, each with 1,400 MW of generation capacity. In 2023, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission submitted proposed a new design to the Ministry of Energy for establishing the nuclear power plant, K4, with a capacity of 1,400MW in Karachi Nuclear Power Complex.
Energy management Electricity grid connections
The National Engineering Services (NES) provides consultancy on energy management of the nuclear power plant and manages the electricity power transmission operations by replacing the aging transformers, three-phase electric powerlines, circuit breakers, and protective relay of the 132 kV double circuit transmission line that links the nuclear power plant to the K-Electric. The NES often works closely with the Institute of Power Engineering of the Karachi University to devise discriminative protection scheme and its integration into the nuclear power plants grid system. In 2010, the NES and Institute of Power Engineering engaged in replacing the electromechanical power relays with the SF6 circuit breakers and modern numerical line protection devices.
Energy capacity and corporate management