CGN Power, a subsidiary of China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), has completed trial run of the Unit 5 of the 6.4GW Yangjiang nuclear power plant (NPP) in Yangjiang, south China's Guangdong Province.
Image: The Yangjiang nuclear power plant in China. Photo: courtesy of China General Nuclear Power Corporation.
The firm has completed a 168-hour trial operation of the Unit 5 with 1080MW capacity, making it ready for commercial operation.
Construction of Unit 5, which was connected to the grid in May 2018, commenced on September 2013.
A total of six reactors are planned for the Yangjiang site of which first four are 1080MWe CPR-1000 pressurised water reactors while the units 5 and 6 are ACPR-1000s.
CGN said in a statement: “Yangjiang NPP Unit 5 is China’s first reactor adopting ACPR1000 design, an evolutionary third generation nuclear technology based on CPR1000+.
“It achieved technical improvements on 31 items based on previous reactor designs, and meets up-to-date technical safety standards.”
Additionally, the Unit 5 also features a nuclear-grade distributed control system (DCS), known as FirmSys, which is said to be the central nervous system of nuclear power plant.
Developed by China Techenergy, a subsidiary of CGN, FirmSys is the China’s first nuclear safety DCS platform with independent intellectual property rights.
The Unit 1, 2, 3 of the Yangjiang NPP were commissioned in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively while the fourth unit entered service in 2017. All the reactors at the plant are planned to be commissioned by 2019.
CGN earlier said that the Yangjiang power plant provides clean and safe energy, making it significant importance to south Guangdong’s ecological environment.
The firm said that the Unit 5 will bring the total number of its operating units to 21.
Last year, the Yangjiang project has produced annual net power generation exceeding 29.96 billion kWh which is equal to reducing standard coal use by 9.26 million tons and CO2 emissions by 24.21 million tons had the same amount of electricity generated by fossil fuels.