The dome has been installed upon the containment building of unit 6 at the Hongyanhe nuclear power plant in China’s Liaoning province. The milestone marks the end of major civil engineering works at the unit.
The operation to install the containment dome – measuring 37 metres in diameter and 11m in height and weighing about 140 tonnes – took about one hour and was completed at 6.15am today, State Nuclear Power Technology Company (SNPTC) announced. The milestone in the unit’s construction was completed seven days ahead of schedule.
SNPTC declared the unit has now entered the equipment installation phase of construction.
Hongyanhe unit 6 is the second of two 1080 MWe Chine General Nuclear (CGN) designed ACPR-1000 reactors that will form the second phase of the Hongyanhe plant.
Construction of Phase I of the plant – comprising four CPR-1000 pressurised water reactors – began in August 2009. Units 1 and 2 have been in commercial operation since June 2013 and May 2014, respectively, while unit 3 entered commercial operation in August 2015 and unit 4 in September 2016.
A ceremony to mark the breaking of ground for Phase II of the plant was held in July 2010. Following a suspension in new reactor approvals and licensing in response to the March 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, CGN eventually received approval from the National Development and Reform Commission in March 2015 to build Hongyanhe units 5 and 6. This marked the first approval for new reactors in four years.
Construction of unit 5 began on 29 March 2015. Its dome was installed in April this year and the reactor is scheduled to start operations in November 2019. Unit 6 – construction of which started in July 2015 – is expected to start up in August 2020.
The Hongyanhe plant is owned and operated by Liaoning Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Co, a joint venture between CGN and State Power Investment Corporation, each holding a 45% stake, with the Dalian Municipal Construction Investment Co holding the remaining 10%.
Source: World Nuclear News
