The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) achieved a major milestone in its pursuit for clean and reliable energy by successfully making critical the Unit-2 of Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (K-2).
The nuclear power plant (NPP) achieved criticality at 2359hrs PST on the night between Sunday and Monday.
The 1100MW NPP will go through certain safety tests and procedures before it is joined to the national grid by the end of March.
K-2 is one of the two similar under-construction NPPs located near Karachi and will be inaugurated for commercial operation by the end of May this year. The other one K-3 is also in the completion phase and is expected to be in operation in 2022.
It is pertinent to mention here that K-2 is the first NPP in Pakistan with a generation capacity of over 1000MWs and will help to reduce load-shedding in summers by generating environment-friendly, affordable, and reliable baseload electricity for the country.
PAEC was previously running five NPPs in the country (one at Karachi and four at Chashma) with a collective generation capacity of nearly 1400MWs.
Hence the K-2 NPP’s addition will almost double the generation capacity of nuclear power plants of the country, improving the share of nuclear power in the overall energy mix.—PR
