The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) has announced that it has connected the 1,100MW Karachi Nuclear Power Plant Unit-2 (K-2) to the national grid.
K-2 is one of the two similar under-construction nuclear power plants (NPPs) located near Karachi. The other one, K-3, is also in completion phase and is expected to be operational by the end of this year. The loading of nuclear fuel onto the plant was started on December 1, 2020 after getting clearance from the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority. During the start of March 2021 PAEC had announced that K-2 had achieved criticality and was undergoing certain safety tests and procedures before it could be connected to the national grid.
The K-2 project is based on Chinese ACP1000 concept started in August 2015 close to the site of the Unit-1 in the outskirts of Karachi city, and is currently operating at 48 megawatts.
PAEC is now running six NPPs in the country. Two of them are located in Karachi and are named Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) K-1 and K-2 while four sited at Chashma, in Mianwali district are named Chashma Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1-4.
Earlier, the collective generation capacity of all PAEC-operated NPPs was around 1,400MWs. Now K-2 with the capacity of producing a whopping 1,100MW would nearly double the generation capacity of nuclear power plants.
