Ningde 4 gets its dome

Friday, 11 May 2012

A major milestone in the construction of unit 4 of the Ningde nuclear power plant in China's Fujian province has been reached with the dome of the reactor building being successfully lowered into place.

The lid goes on at Ningde 4 (Image: CNECC)

On 5 May, in an operation lasting just under one hour, the 144-tonne reactor dome was lifted by a giant crane and placed on top of the containment building walls, according to plant constructor China Nuclear Engineering and Construction Corporation. The operation to install the dome - with a diametre of 37 metres and a height of 11 metres - was completed at 7:13am. Work on the nuclear island at Ningde 4 officially began on 29 September 2010 at a ceremony attended by project partners China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company and Datang International.

Four Chinese-designed CPR-1000 pressurized water reactors are currently under construction at the Ningde site, near Fuding city. Work on the first Ningde unit started in February 2008, with construction of units 2 and 3 beginning in November 2008 and January 2010, respectively. All four units at the site are scheduled to come online between late 2012 and 2015.

The construction of two further CPR-1000 reactors is planned for Phase II of the Ningde plant.

Meanwhile, another CPR-1000 project at China National Nuclear Corp's Fangjiashan in Zhejiang province has reached another milestone. In an operation lasting almost six hours, the reactor pressure vessel of unit 1's reactor was successfully installed on the backing ring on 30 April.

The Fangjiashan project will see two CPR-1000 reactors with a combined capacity of 2160 MWe constructed near the existing Qinshan plant. First concrete for the first unit at the Fangjiashan plant was poured in December 2008, while that for the second was poured in July 2009. The dates scheduled for the start of their commercial operation are December 2013 and October 2014, respectively.

The CPR-1000 is a standardized Chinese design developed from the two Areva PWRs imported for the Daya Bay plant in Guangdong province, starting up in 1994. Those units were built to the French three-loop standard, outputting 944 MWe. The CPR-1000 builds on that to produce 1080 MWe. The CPR-1000, along with Westinghouse's AP1000, is a mainstay of China's planned near-term nuclear capacity expansion, with 18 CPR-1000s already under construction.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News