Nuclear power: Domestic companies to opt for locally-designed reactors to avoid delays

File picture of Nuclear Power Corp.'s Kudankulam plant in Tamil Nadu

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Adeel Halim

India’s biggest utilities plan to rely on locally-designed large nuclear reactors to fast-track projects in a sector plagued by delays and cost overruns.Companies including the Adani Group, Jindal Steel Ltd. and state-run NTPC Ltd. said they would initially deploy Indian-made pressurised heavy water reactors to speed up regulatory approvals and benefit from an established supply chain.“In India we have the advantage of a 700 megawatt design that’s already standardised and operational,” said Vivek Sharma, business head at Adani Atomic Energy. Most importantly, the supply chain underpinning the technology is fully domestic, he said at the BNEF Summit in New Delhi.The government opened the strategically sensitive nuclear sector to private firms last year, supporting the goal of expanding generation capacity eleven-fold to 100 gigawatts by 2047. Currently the atomic sector supplies just 3% of India’s electricity, with persistent delays and steep cost overruns having stymied expansion for decades.The Department of Atomic Energy earlier this month issued the draft rules for private companies to build nuclear plants, ending decades of dominance by state-owned Nuclear Power Corp., which operates India’s entire 8.8 gigawatts of atomic capacity. Delays in construction lead to cost overruns and increase the price of electricity threatening a project’s viability, said Naveen Ahlawat, president and head of decarbonization at Jindal Steel Ltd.Jindal Steel’s first pair of reactors would most likely be 700-megawatt domestic reactors, although the company is exploring other technologies from potential partners including Russia’s Rosatom and Electricite de France, Ahlawat said at the summit. The company has a target to build 18 gigawatts of atomic capacity by 2047.The locally-designed reactors are also an attractive option for NTPC, which is targeting 30 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2047 to help decarbonise its coal-heavy fleet. The company’s first project through a joint venture with Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd. is using four indigenous units. Almost 80 per cent of the company’s planned capacity will use the large pressurised water and heavy water reactors, said NTPC’s Director Projects K. Shanmugha Sundaram at the conference, adding that the Indian heavy water technology is the cheapest as of now.In his August 15 Independence Day speech, Modi said that India aims to start five reactors within six to seven years. Billionaire Gautam Adani has already announced plans for 10 gigawatts of nuclear capacity, while Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. signed a preliminary agreement to invest 2 trillion rupees in atomic projects in Maharashtra.More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com©2026 Bloomberg L.P.Published on August 22, 2026