Economics of nuclear power in the Indian context

The initiatives of the Indian government on international cooperation in nuclear energy and the option of a significant increase of the nuclear share in electricity generation based on nuclear power reactors set up with international cooperation, in addition to the indigenous programme, have stirred up a debate in the country on these issues. The economics of electricity generation via the nuclear route is an important issue. While electricity has been generated from indigenous nuclear power plants over the last three decades, and the tariffs have been competitive with those of thermal power, there is apprehension in some sections that the likely tariffs of electricity generated by large imported nuclear power reactors would be unaffordable. This paper presents a parametric study of such tariffs and demonstrates that these tariffs would be competitive with other options for large base load generation across a range of overnight costs and fuel prices.