The Sanmen Nuclear Power Station () is a

nuclear power station A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces elec ...

Sanmen County Sanmen County (Tai-chow dialect: Sæn-meng Yön; ) is a coastal county under the jurisdiction of Taizhou, Zhejiang, Taizhou city/municipality in the east of Zhejiang, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China. The county's total area is , and ...

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Sanmen is the first implementation of the

AP1000 The AP1000 is a nuclear power plant designed and sold by Westinghouse Electric Company. The plant is a pressurized water reactor with improved use of passive nuclear safety and many design features intended to lower its capital cost and improve ...

pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary ...

(PWR) developed by

Westinghouse Electric Company Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is an American nuclear power company formed in 1999 from the nuclear power division of the original Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It offers nuclear products and services to utilities internationally, includi ...

History

The contract for the plant was agreed in July 2007. Announcement of the project start came roughly twelve months after Westinghouse won a bidding contest over other companies. The contract for the new plant involved

The Shaw Group The Shaw Group is a pipe and module fabrication firm specializing in induction bending. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Shaw employs approximately 700 people across its offices and operations in North America and the Middle East. History Sha ...

(now Chicago Bridge and Iron), a minority shareholder in Westinghouse. Westinghouse was controlled by Japanese

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...

. The Shaw Group did provide engineering, procurement, commissioning, information management and project management services. The first pair of reactors were estimated to cost CNY 32.4 billion yuan, later estimates in 2013 gave figures of CNY 40.1 billion ($6.12 billion USD). The final sum was CNY 10 billion yuan higher. Groundbreaking for the first and second units was held 26 February 2008. Excavation for the first unit was completed in September 2008. Quality of the pit was certified, putting the project 67 days ahead of schedule. Construction of Sanmen Unit 1 began on 19 April 2009, as the first 5,200 m³ of concrete were poured for the foundation, in a ceremony attended by State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) chair Wang Binghua and Westinghouse CEO Aris Candris. First concrete for Sanmen 2 was poured on 15 December 2009. In June 2014, China First Heavy Industries completed the first domestically produced AP1000

reactor pressure vessel A reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in a nuclear power plant is the pressure vessel containing the nuclear reactor coolant, core shroud, and the reactor core. Classification of nuclear power reactors Russian Soviet era RBMK reactors have each fuel a ...

for the second AP1000 unit. The units were originally projected to begin operation in 2014 and 2015. In April 2015, a start date of 2016 was projected for both. One month later, the start date was put back to 2017. In January 2017

China National Nuclear Corporation The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC; ) is a state-owned enterprise founded in 1955 in Beijing. CNNC's president and vice-president are appointed by the Premier of the People's Republic of China. CNNC oversees all aspects of China's c ...

(CNNC) announced that the final reactor coolant pump had been installed with start of operations still foreseen for 2017. , Sanmen 1 had completed pre-fuelling safety checks but was not expected to be connected to the grid until the fall of 2018 at the earliest. Hot testing of Sanmen 1 was completed in June 2017, and fuel loading started on 25 April 2018. It subsequently became the first AP1000 reactor in the world to achieve first criticality at 2:09 AM on 21 June 2018, and was connected to the grid on 30 June 2018. Sanmen Unit 1 entered into commercial operation on 21 September 2018. Sanmen Unit 2 achieved first criticality on 17 August 2018 and was connected to the grid on 24 August 2018. Full-power demonstration testing was completed on 5 November 2018, and the unit is now considered to be in commercial operation. In March 2019 Sanmen Unit 2 shut down because of a reactor coolant pump defect, with the root cause still under investigation. A replacement pump has been shipped from the United States by

Curtiss-Wright The Curtiss-Wright Corporation is a manufacturer and services provider headquartered in Davidson, North Carolina, with factories and operations in and outside the United States. Created in 1929 from the consolidation of Curtiss, Wright, and v ...

. There have been previous problems with these pumps with impeller blade quality, which involved the return of three pumps to the U.S. in 2013.

Reactor data

The Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant consist of 2 operational reactors. Groundwork for units 3 and 4 have been carried out, but during the process, the project nearly came to a standstill. This comes due to delays with CAP-1000 projects. However, on 20 April 2022, permission to resume construction on the two units was approved by the State Council.

References

External links

Sanmen Nuclear Power Company
Retrieved 2009-12-16. *
Corporate News
State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC). Retrieved 2009-12-16. *
Sanmen Nuclear Power Company, Ltd.

(CNNC). Retrieved 2009-12-16.
Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant, Zhejiang Province, China
{{Nuclear power in the PRC Nuclear power stations using AP1000 reactors Nuclear power stations in China Nuclear power stations with reactors under construction Proposed power stations in China Power stations in Zhejiang 2018 establishments in China Buildings and structures under construction in China Nuclear power stations with proposed reactors

History

Reactor data

See also

References

External links