Expansion of world's first fourth-generation nuclear power plant begins

Expansion of the world's first fourth-generation nuclear power plant, the Shidaowan high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) nuclear power plant, began in east China's Shandong Province on Sunday.

The project, for which China owns fully independent intellectual property rights, is located in Rongcheng County, Weihai City. It is jointly developed by China Huaneng Group, Tsinghua University and China National Nuclear Corporation.

Equipped with the world's first high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, also known as the fourth-generation reactor, the plant went into commercial operation last December.

The first phase of the expansion project is to install another domestically developed third-generation pressurized water reactor Hualong One, which will operate with the gas-cooled one, Zhang Aijun, vice president of the HTGR Nuclear Power Company, Ltd, told China Media Group (CMG).

"The first phase of the expansion project includes two units of Hualong One, our domestically developed third-generation nuclear reactors with independent intellectual property rights, each with a capacity of 1.2 million kilowatts," said Zhang, adding that "upon completion, the plant is expected to generate 20 billion kilowatt-hours per year and increase heating supply area by 20 million square meters to benefit 600,000 local residents."

The future expansion plan includes adding four more pressurized water reactors each with a capacity of over one million kilowatts, according to Zhang.

Upon completion, the total installed capacity of the power plant will exceed five million kilowatts, with an annual generation capacity of 35 billion kilowatt-hours, enough for the electricity consumption of over 17 million three-member households for a year. This is equivalent to offsetting 11.5 million tonnes of standard coal consumption and 27.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission on an annual basis, said Zhang. 

"We will maximize the effect of the third-generation pressurized water reactor and the fourth-generation high-temperature gas-cooled reactor integrated at the big base, further enhance China's nuclear power equipment manufacturing, construction, operation and maintenance capabilities, continuously expand the scenarios of comprehensive utilization of nuclear energy, and cultivate and develop new quality productive forces in nuclear power," Zhang added.