Shidao Bay Nuclear Power Plant (), commonly known as Shidaowan, is a

nuclear power plant 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 electric generator, generato ...

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...

province, China. The site is located near the Xiqianjia village in Ningjin subdistrict, Rongcheng,

Weihai Weihai (), formerly called Weihaiwei (), is a prefecture-level city and major seaport in easternmost Shandong province. It borders Yantai to the west and the Yellow Sea to the east, and is the closest Chinese city to South Korea. Weihai's popula ...

, Shandong. The plant is located about south of Rongcheng City, northwest of Shidao, and southeast of Weihai City. The plant has the first fourth-generation nuclear reactors in the world: the HTR-PM, a

high-temperature gas-cooled reactor A high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), is a nuclear reactor that uses a graphite moderator with a once-through uranium fuel cycle. The HTGR is a type of high-temperature reactor (HTR) that can conceptually have an outlet temperature of . ...

(HTGR) concept (). The plant will ultimately have ten 210 MW_e ( megawatts electrical) units of this type. Each unit is made of two HTR-PM reactors driving a single 210 MW_e steam turbine. The plant also hosts the construction of two 1500 MW_e

CAP1400 China is one of the world's largest producers of nuclear power. The country ranks third in the world both in total nuclear power capacity installed and electricity generated, accounting for around one tenth of global nuclear power generated. N ...

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 ...

s (), a design based on 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 ...

jointly developed by Westinghouse and China's

State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation Limited (abbreviation SNPTC) is a Chinese state-owned enterprise in nuclear power. The company engages in the development of nuclear technology and is one of the country's three operators of nuclear power ...

(SNPTC). Shidao Bay nuclear power plant is a joint venture by

China Huaneng Group China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd., abbreviated as CHNG or Huaneng Group, is one of the five largest state-owned enterprise, state-owned electricity generation enterprises in China, administrated by the State Council of the People's Republic of Chi ...

, China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Group, and

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...

. The total investment of 100 billion yuan (US$15.7 billion) and the 20-year construction plan makes it China's largest planned nuclear project by megawatt capacity.

HTR-PM

In 2005, China announced its intention to scale up the

HTR-10 HTR-10 is a 10 MWt prototype pebble bed reactor at Tsinghua University in China. Construction began in 1995, achieving its first criticality in December 2000, and was operated in full power condition in January 2003. Two HTR-PM reactors, scale ...

experimental reactor for commercial power generation. The first two 250-MWt High-Temperature Reactor-Pebble-bed Modules (HTR-PM) will be installed at Shidao Bay, and together drive a

steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

generating 200

MWe The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt ...

. Originally to be started in 2011, the project was postponed after the

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

in March 2011. In 2009, it was planned to be finished in 2013. Construction finally began at the end of 2012, with the pouring of concrete basemat occurring in April 2014. The vessel was installed in 2016. It was expected to begin operating around 2017, later postponed to 2018. The pressure vessel head was installed in December 2017. Cold testing was completed in November 2020. Hot functional testing of the reactors began in January 2021, and operational start up is planned for late 2021. The first reactor went critical, marking the first criticality of a generation IV commercial nuclear power plant, in September 2021. Reactor two achieved first criticality in November 2021. Reactor one was connected to the state power grid and began producing power in December 2021 The HTR-PM project demonstrated it had reached "initial full power" in December 2022. An updated larger power plant, HTR-PM600, is planned with a capacity of 600 MWe using six HTR-PM reactor units.

CAP1400

In November 2006,

State Power Investment Corporation State Power Investment Corporation Limited (abbreviation SPIC) is one of the five major electricity generation companies in China. It was the successor of China Power Investment Corporation after it was merged with the State Nuclear Power Te ...

(SPIC) introduced the

, a third-generation pressurized water reactor design, from the U.S. company Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Since then China built four AP1000 units, two in the

Sanmen Nuclear Power Station The Sanmen Nuclear Power Station () is a nuclear power station in Sanmen County, Zhejiang, China. Sanmen is the first implementation of the AP1000 pressurized water reactor (PWR) developed by Westinghouse Electric Company. History The contr ...

, and another two in the

Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant in Haiyang, Shandong province, China. It is the second site to house AP1000 units, after the Sanmen Nuclear Power Station. History Groundbreaking happened one month ahead of schedule on July& ...

. China has been researching and developing its own version of the AP1000, the more powerful CAP1400, also referred to as Guohe One (Guo He One, , i.e. unity of the country). Preparation work started in 2013 and Unit 1 construction started in 2018. Completion estimated in 2021. In May 2016, the CAP1400 design has successfully passed the

International Atomic Energy Agency The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 ...

's (IAEA) Generic Reactor Safety Review. According to SPIC, the company is building two CAP1400 reactors in a demonstration project located in the Shidao Bay nuclear plant. In March 2017, the Unit 1 first CAP1400 reactor pressure vessel hydraulic test was completed at the factory test site. The pressure vessel is the core equipment of the reactor and has a total weight of about 487 tons and a design life of 60 years. On 30 June 2017, the Unit 1 first low-pressure module LP2 of the CAP1400 National Nuclear Demonstration Project Turbine, was completed by

Dongfang Electric Dongfang Electric Corporation () is a Chinese state-owned manufacturer of power generators and the contracts of power station projects. According to Platts, in 2009-10 the company was the second largest manufacturer of steam turbines by worldwid ...

Group Dongfang Steam Turbine Co., Ltd. The CAP1400 steam turbine low-pressure rotor has a weight of 267 tons and the whole block weight is 749 tons. The last stage blades in the low pressure turbines are tall. The LP2 steam turbine will help drive the CAP1400 1,520 MW generator. In March 2022 it was announced that commercial operation of the two CAP-1400 units is expected to commence in 2025.

Reactor data

The Shidao Bay Nuclear Power Plant consist of two operational reactors (that drive one unit), two reactors under construction, and four planned future reactors.

References

{{Nuclear power in the PRC Nuclear power stations in China Buildings and structures in Shandong Nuclear power stations with reactors under construction Nuclear power stations with proposed reactors

HTR-PM

CAP1400

Reactor data

See also

References