30 Sept (NucNet): Construction of Unit 4 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in Jiangsu province, eastern China, has begun with the pouring of first concrete a month ahead of schedule, the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has said in a statement.
Tianwan-4 will be a VVER-1000 nuclear unit with a design net capacity of 990 megawatts. It is being supplied by Russian state nuclear company Rosatom and is the 30th commercial nuclear unit under construction in China.
CNNC said Tianwan-4 will fulfil Generation III nuclear power safety requirements and be optimised as a result of the March 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi accident in Japan.
Russia’s nuclear vendor Atomstroyexport is the supplier of the nuclear island while a consortium of Areva and Siemens is supplying the instrumentation and control system.
Civil construction and conventional island work is being done by the Jiangsu Nuclear Power Corporation, a joint venture consisting of China National Nuclear Corporation, China Power Investment Corporation and Jiangsu Guoxin Group.
Tianwan-4 is part of the so-called ‘Phase 2’ of the Tianwan nuclear power plant, which began with the construction of Tianwan-3 in December 2012.
Tianwan-3 is expected to begin commercial operation in February 2018 and Tianwan-4 in December 2018.
Tianwan-1 and -2 are both VVER-1000 units and became operational in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
CNNC has said it plans to build a further four nuclear units at Tianwan, with the possibility remaining open of using either the Chinese CPR-1000 reactor design or the Russian VVER design.
