July-August 2018 NPJ

Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2018 NuclearPlantJournal.com 11 “Today we completed the final major milestone before commercial operation for Westinghouse’s AP1000 nuclear power plant technology,” said José Emeterio Gutiérrez, Westinghouse president and chief executive officer. “We are one step closer to delivering the world’s firstAP1000 plant to our customer and the world – with our customers, we will provide our customers in China with safe, reliable and clean energy from Sanmen 1.” Following initial criticality will be connection to the electrical grid. Once plant operations begin at Sanmen 1, it will be the first AP1000 nuclear power plant in operation, offering innovative passive safety system technology, multiple layers of defense and advanced controls for unequaled reliability and safety. Contact: Sarah Cassella, Westinghouse Electric Company, telephone: (412) 374-4744, email: cassels@westinghouse.com. Sanmen 2 Unit 2 of the Sanmen nuclear power plant in China has received regulatory approval for fuel loading, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced. CNNC said the approval for fuel loading of unit 2 had been received from the National Nuclear Safety Administration on July 4, 2018. The regulator had supervised the nuclear safety of the construction process and pre-loading tests at the unit, the results of which indicated that the reactor was ready for fuel loading, CNNC said. The notice, published on the website of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, states that CNNC must “strictly abide” by the requirements of technical specifications and quality management to ensure nuclear safety during fuel loading and operation of the unit after loading. Following fuel loading, the pre- commissioning stages will include, it says: first criticality; 5% rated power; 50% rated power; and 90% of rated power. On completion of these stages, the operator will then seek approval for commissioning the unit. Hot tests at Sanmen 2 were completed in January and it is expected to begin operating by the end of this year. Source: World Nuclear News , website: www.world-nuclear-news.org Rooppur 2 First concrete for the foundation of unit 2 of the Rooppur nuclear power plant in Bangladesh was poured during a ceremony on July 14, 2018.Aconstruction license for the Russian-supplied reactor was issued by the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority on July 8, 2018. First concrete is seen as the start of the main construction phase of a nuclear reactor. Two 1200 MWe VVER-1200 units are being built at Rooppur, which is on the eastern bank of the river Ganges at Rooppur, 160 km from Dhaka. The VVER-1200 reactor design has already been implemented at Novovoronezh II in Russia, where the first unit of that design - a development from the VVER-1000 - entered commercial operation in February 2017. JSC AtomStroyExport (ASE), a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, is the general construction contractor. Rosatom in February 2011 signed an agreement for two 1000 MWe-class reactors to be built at Rooppur for the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC). The initial contract for the project, worth $12.65 billion, was signed in December 2015. The Bangladesh Atomic Regulatory Authority issued the first site licence for the Rooppur plant in June 2016, allowing preliminary site works, including geological surveys, to begin. Rooppur unit 1 is scheduled to begin operation in 2023, with unit 2 following in 2024. Source: World Nuclear News , website: www.world-nuclear-news.org Yangjiang 5 Unit 5 of the Yangjiang nuclear power plant in China’s Guangdong province has completed commissioning tests and now meets the conditions for entering commercial operation, China General Nuclear (CGN) announced yesterday. The unit is the first ACPR1000 reactor to be built and the first Chinese unit to feature a domestically-developed digital control system. The 1000 MWe CGN-designed pressurised water reactor achieved first criticality on May 16, 2018 and was connected to the grid on May 23, 2018. Since then, a series of commissioning tests have been conducted at the unit, including a load test run and a demonstration run lasting 168 hours. Although CGN must still obtain necessary permits and documentation, the unit can now be considered to be in commercial operation. Yangjiang 5 becomes the company’s 21st power reactor in commercial operation, with a combined capacity of 22.778 GWe. Six units are planned for the Yangjiang site. The first four units are CPR-1000s, with units 5 and 6 being ACPR-1000s. Unit 1 entered commercial operation in March 2015, with units 2, 3 and 4 following in June 2015, January 2016 and March 2017, respectively. First concrete for Yangjiang unit 5 was poured in September 2013, with that for unit 6 following three months later. All six reactors should be in operation by 2019. Source: World Nuclear News , website: www.world-nuclear-news.org http://digitaleditions.nuclearplantjournal.com