Commercial operation begins at Ningde 3

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

Unit 3 of the Ningde plant in China's Fujian province has become China's 25th nuclear power reactor to enter commercial operation.

Unit 3 of the Ningde plant (Image: CGN)

The CPR-1000 pressurized water reactor officially entered commercial operation at 8.13pm on 10 June, having completed a demonstration test run of 168 hours of continuous operation, China General Nuclear (CGN) announced.

The 1020 MWe reactor achieved first criticality on 7 March and was connected to the grid on 21 March.

Ningde 3 is one of four CPR-1000 units being built at the site. Construction of units 1 and 2 started in 2008 and those units entered commercial operation in June 2013 and May 2014, respectively. Construction of units 3 and 4 started in 2010. Unit 4 is expected to begin commercial operation in 2016.

The Ningde plant is built across three small islands near Fuqing City in the northeast of Fujian province. The plant is co-owned by CGN (46%), China Datang Corp (44%) and Fujian Energy Group (10%).

Ningde is the first nuclear project of Datang, one of the five large generating companies formed from splitting up the State Power Corporation in 2002.

The start of commercial operations at Ningde 3 came just days after CGN's Yangjiang 2 entered commercial operation.

CGN now has 13 nuclear power reactors in commercial operation with a combined generating capacity of 13.8 GWe. It has a further ten units under construction, with a capacity of 12.3 GWe.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News