First concrete at Qinshan Phase II, unit 4

Tuesday, 6 February 2007 Officials from the Qinshan Joint Venture, a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Corporation, have celebrated the first pouring of concrete for the fourth reactor of the second phase of developmentat Qinshan.

The distributed Qinshan site has been developed in three sub-sites:

• Phase I saw the construction of a 300 MWe pressurized waterreactor (PWR) start in 1985 - the first indigenously-designed Chinesenuclear power station to be built.
• Phase II consists of two CNP-600 design PWRs each outputting 610 MWe. They were built between 1996 and 2002.
• Phase III consists of two 750 MWe pressurized heavy waterreactors (PHWRs) supplied by AECL of Canada and commissioned in 2002and 2003.

Now, construction has started on two more reactors for Qinshan Phase II, both of them updated CNP-600 designs that should provide 650 MWe to in Zhejiang province in eastern China upon completion in 2011. NucNet reported that first concrete was poured for Qinshan Phase II unit 4 on 28 January.

Two more 610 MWe PWRs are planned for Qinshan as part of China's programme of nuclear power expansion that could see the country boast 40 GWe of nuclear capacity by 2020.

Further information

China National Nuclear Corporation

WNA's Nuclear Power in China information paper