China's nuclear power plant Tianwan-4 ready for the market

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00:45

The fourth unit of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in east China's Jiangsu Province is ready for commercial operation after being checked for glitches, according to the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).

Tianwan-4, part of the Tianwan Phase II Project, has adopted the VVER nuclear power technology supplied by Russia, which is a version similar but superior to Tianwan-3.

"When Unit 4 gets commissioned, Tianwan Phase II Project with units 3 and 4 combined will increase the electricity generation to 16-18 billion kWh per year," said Shen Yanfeng, general manager of CNNC.

Based on the Phase I technology, the units 3 and 4 in the second stage improved their performance by applying more domestically developed equipment.

"Like the steam turbine, it is made in China. With 98 percent of self-developed units, the power plant can still work very smoothly," said Zhang Yi, operating director of CNNC.

The reason that China chose to bring in Russia's technology at first was because of its higher safety standard when compared with the technology used in the U.S. or France.

One of the examples is the steam generator applied in the nuclear power plant.

"The steam generator to the nuclear power plant is like the boiler to the power plant. A horizontal steam generator applied in Russia's technology has larger water storage than the vertical one in France or the U.S. You know, the larger the storage, the safer the equipment," said Zhang.

The Tianwan nuclear power plant is currently the largest Russian-Chinese power project. Supported by Chinese government under the initiative of developing domestic clean energy, the project has generated electricity over 160 billion kWh in total, which can be used by 100 million Chinese families for one year.