The Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant or Chin Shan Nuclear Power Plant (金山核能發電廠), First Nuclear Power Plant (第一核能發電廠 or 核一), 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 generator that produces ...

being definitely shutdown in

Shimen District Shimen District (), also known as Sekimon, is a sparsely populated rural district in the northern part of New Taipei City in northern Taiwan. It is part of the North Coast and Guanyinshan National Scenic Area and includes Taiwan's northernmost po ...

New Taipei New Taipei City is a special municipality located in northern Taiwan. The city is home to an estimated population of 3,974,683 as of 2022, making it the most populous city of Taiwan, and also the second largest special municipality by area, b ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

. Commissioned in 1978, the plant was Taiwan's first and smallest nuclear power plant.

Construction

The village of Qianhua, in

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

, primarily populated by a family surnamed Lien, was demolished to construct the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant as a response to the

1970s energy crisis The 1970s energy crisis occurred when the Western world, particularly the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, faced substantial petroleum shortages as well as elevated prices. The two worst crises of this period wer ...

, and incorporated into the Ten Major Construction Projects in 1973.

Generation

Jinshan began generating power on 16 November 1977, and started commercial operations in December 1978. The power plant can generate 9 billion kWh of electricity per year. The two

spent fuel pool Spent fuel pools (SFP) are storage pools (or "ponds" in the United Kingdom) for spent fuel from nuclear reactors. They are typically 40 or more feet (12 m) deep, with the bottom 14 feet (4.3 m) equipped with storage racks designed to hold ...

s at the plant have 3,074 and 3,076

spent nuclear fuel Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor and ...

assemblies, respectively, with a maximum storage of 3,083 assemblies per pool.

Decommissioning plan

Taipower, as the operator of the power plant, was required by the Radiation Monitoring Center of the

Atomic Energy Council The Atomic Energy Council (AEC; ) is an independent government agency of the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China ( Taiwan) which is responsible for atomic safety, development and regulations. It also conducts research and development into ato ...

to hand in the 2018 decommissioning plans for the plant by December 2015 for the authority to review all of the plans before the decommissioning date. Once the reactors have been shut down, the plant should be dismantled within 25 years. Taipower plans to allocate NT$18.2 billion for the disposal of nuclear waste from the decommissioned plant over the next 25 years. Currently Taipower is doing feasibility study of building a nuclear waste storage facility on an uninhabited island around Taiwan.

Events

The July 2013 Typhoon Soulik caused a trip to the generator and turbine of the power plant Unit-2 because one suspension ground line failed and hit the transmission line when the typhoon hit the island on 13–14 July. The typhoon also caused the seawater inlet to be blocked by large amount of debris and damaged three fine filters, traveling filter rake and the plant's switchyard. The damage caused the plant to be offline for several days. In August 2013, it was reported that there might have been radioactive water leaks for three years from the storage pools of the nuclear power plant's two reactors. Official from

Taipower The Taiwan Power Company (, Taipower; ) is a state-owned electric power industry providing electricity to Taiwan and off-shore islands of the Republic of China. History Taipower was established on 1 May 1946. Its origins can be traced to 1919 ...

said that the water might come from different sources, such as condensation water or water used for cleaning up the floors. The water however has been collected in a reservoir next to the storage pools used for spent nuclear rods and has been recycled back into the storage pools, thus is claimed to pose no threat to the environment. In December 2013, the circulating pump of the second reactor tripped due to the low lube oil pressure which caused a built-in lube oil pump. The

was criticized due to their very slow respond in giving answers to the public only 10 hours after the trip. On 4 August 2016, smoke rose out from the power plant resulted from unstable voltage frequency which caused external

circuit breaker A circuit breaker is an electrical safety device designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage caused by an overcurrent or short circuit. Its basic function is to interrupt current flow to protect equipment and to prevent the ris ...

s to trip and produced smoke.

References

{{Power plants of Taiwan 1978 establishments in Taiwan 2019 disestablishments in Taiwan Buildings and structures in New Taipei Energy infrastructure completed in 1978 Nuclear power stations in Taiwan

Construction

Generation

Decommissioning plan

Events

See also

References