21 October 2015

Yangjiang‑3 Grid Connection in China

Yangjiang 3 grid connection

21 October 2015

Grid connection of Yangjiang Unit 3, located at Dongping Town, Yangjiang City in western Guangdong Province, took place on 18 October 2015, according to plant owner China General Nuclear Power Corp. (CGN). Construction start of Unit 3 began on 15 November 2010, and commercial operation is scheduled for later this year. Yangjiang Unit 2 was connected to the grid in March 2015. In total, six units are slated to be built at the site, Yangjiang Units 1-4 are of the CPR-1000 design, while Units 5 and 6 are ACPR-1000s.

Safety issues with the CPR-1000 design have been raised in recent years, including descriptions of it being obsolete, as it is based on a modified version of the Framatome 900 MW reactors, which were built in France between 1971 and 1987. Earlier this year a senior member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences warned in relation to lessons being applied following the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, that, “There were internal discussions on upgrading standards in the past four years, but doing so would require a lot more investment which would affect the competitiveness and profitability of nuclear power... Nuclear energy costs are cheap because we lower our standards.”

CGN now has 15 units on the grid with a total installed capacity of 16 GW.