Chennai: The need of the hour in developing countries is to access cheap and reliable source of electricity for the country’s economy and overall development and Small Modular Reactors (SMR) can be the solution for this plaguing power woes and yet be easy on the budget, said Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation first deputy director general, Kirill Komarov.
He was speaking at the 11th International Forum Atomexpo 2019 recently. “For a number of countries, SMRs may become the solution to this issue, as they will not require huge investments. These are much smaller projects both in costs and in terms of construction,” he said.
According to him, with fossil fuels being the most expensive means for power generation, the power tariffs are high, and high fuel prices also exacerbate the situation.
Admitting that the short-term costs of electricity generation through nuclear sources could be high, in the long term, fixed costs are likely to be offset by the long term power generation cycle.
“From the perspective of one-off costs, nuclear power plants are considered as big projects, when we are talking about high-capacity nuclear power plants,” added Komarov.