new delhi technological and financial concerns as well as differences over taking responsibility for the construction of the proposed 10000mw nuclear power plant at jaitapur in maharashtra are weighing down efforts to fasttrack the general framework agreement ahead of french president emmanuel macrons visit in decembermacron will be in delhi on december 8 for a threeday visit primarily to adopt the legal framework for international solar alliance an international band of sunshine countries to promote solar energy efforts are on to get the deal with edf french statecontrolled company that is europes largest operator of nuclear power plants in the bag for macron to carry back homethe jaitapur project was originally to be built by areva under a 2009 mou with staterun npcil at an estimated cost of 4 billion in april 2015 areva signed preengineering agreement with npcil to examine the licensability of its epr european pressurised reactor in india but earlier this year edf took over arevas nuclear power gear making business after it landed in dire straitsthe troubles for areva began after it found few takers for its epr technology in the wake of growing global negative traction for nuclear power in the wake of fukushima disaster in japan the epr technology is yet to become commercially operational anywhere in the world all the five projects using this technology currently under construction globally hinkley point in uk olkiluoto in finland and flamanville in france and taishan in china are all facing time and cost overrunsbut the jaitapur project is now facing more basic question on the cost of energy the rs 7 per unit price cap will appear costly in public perception in the backdrop of solar and wind power tariff dropping to below rs 3 per unitmark admittedly solar and wind are intermittent energy sources as against nuclear power station but it may be hard to manage public perception if as sources say jaitapur power could end up costing rs 8 per unit unless the project gets cheap financing from the french or indian government lending agenciesbesides the sources said the fear of the untried technology still remains one of the key areas of concern this could have partially been addressed had edf taken full responsibility of engineering procurement and construction process but the french company has so far not agreed to this and only inked a cooperation deal with indian engineeringconstruction giant lt for higher localisation of the fabrication process