Fourth Ningde unit enters commercial operation

Thursday, 21 July 2016

Unit 4 of the Ningde nuclear power plant in China's Fujian province has entered commercial operation, plant constructor China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Company Limited announced today.

Units 3 and 4 of the Ningde plant (Image: CGN)

The company said the CPR-1000 pressurized water reactor entered commercial operation at 12.05am today, having completed a 168-hour continuous demonstration run.

Fuel loading operations began at unit 4 on 31 December 2015 and the process of loading all 157 fuel assemblies into the reactor's core was completed 3 January. The unit achieved first criticality on 16 March and was connected to the grid on 29 March.

Ningde 4 is one of four 1020 MWe CPR-1000 units built as Phase I of the plant. 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, with Ningde 3 entering commercial operation in June 2015.

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 construction of two Hualong One reactors is planned for Phase II of the plant.

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.

CGN now has 17 reactors in operation with a combined generating capacity of 18.17 GWe and a further eight units currently under construction.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News