Construction has begun on the first of two new reactors, numbers 5 and 6, at the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in Fujian Province, news website CGTN reports.
The first concrete pour for the nuclear “island” of unit five – the reactor building and containment dome – began at 11am yesterday, according to China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), which is building the plant.
Four 1,080MW CPR-1000 reactors have already been installed at the site, with work on the first unit beginning in 2008 and the commissioning of the fourth taking place in 2016.
All the reactors at the site will be of the CPR-1000 pressurised water type.
They’re based on a French design that China imported in the 1980s and subsequently modified to the generation II+ class.
It was the most common reactor design of the 2010s; CGN has built 14 so far.
Tian Huiyu, the general manager of Fujian Ningde Nuclear Power Company, commented: “The construction of units five and six will further increase the proportion of clean energy in Fujian Province and inject stronger clean energy support into the high-quality economic and social development of Fujian Province.”
Each reactor is expected to meet the electricity needs of roughly a million people.
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