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NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2014
Multiple
Defense
Levels
Sanmen Nuclear
Plant
In 2007, Westinghouse Electric
Company LLC was awarded a contract
to build four units of AP1000
®
nuclear
power plants in China: two in Sanmen
and two in Haiyang. About two years
later, the first pour of concrete at Sanmen
was completed on April 19, 2009.
This important milestone marked the
beginning of the Sanmen AP1000 nuclear
power plant – the first AP1000 ever to be
built was underway.
Sanmen Nuclear Power Project
(NPP) is located in Sanmen County,
Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province – an
eastern coastal area of China. It is 171
km north of Hangzhou City, 83 km east
of Ningbo City, 51 km west of Taizhou
City and 150 km south of Wenzhou City.
Sanmen Nuclear Power Company, Ltd.
(SMNPC) was established on April 17,
2005 and falls under the management
of China National Nuclear Power Co.
Ltd. (CNNC) – the largest nuclear
power utility company in China. With
51 percent of the shares of the project’s
total investment, CNNC is in charge of a
full spectrum of the power plant’s work,
including construction, commissioning,
operation and management.
By adopting AP1000 technology, the
latest Generation III+ pressurized water
reactor (PWR) nuclear power technology
from Westinghouse, SMNPC will build
six units of nuclear reactors in three
phases with 1250 megawatt electricity
(MWe) each, and the total installed
capacity expected to reach 7500MWe.
This is China’s first indigenous
program, approved by the State Council
on July 21, 2004. Sanmen Nuclear Power
Project is viewed as the biggest energy
cooperative project between China
and the U.S., and it is also the largest
investment project in Zhejiang Province.
The first Sanmen unit is expected
to come on-line by the end of 2015. In
2015, the electricity generation from
the Sanmen Nuclear Power Project
will account for 3.3 percent of the
total electricity generation of Zhejiang
Province.
During the course of the construction
of the Sanmen plants, China is enhancing
its capability in nuclear construction,
engineering and manufacturing, while the
country also develops its own Generation
III technology.
Safety of the Site
Anti-tsunami geological
conditions
The Sanmen site is located on the
wide and gentle continental shelf with
no big geological fault zone around the
plant. The water within 100 km of the site
is about 0-100m deep.
There has been no record of
earthquake or tsunami in the coastal area
of the site since A.D. 708. The island
chain from the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan
Island, the Okinawa ocean trench and
the continental shelf constitute a natural
protective barrier against tsunami for the
site along Zhejiang coast.
Seismic Design
The actual safe earthquake of the
utmost limit (SL-2) for the site is 0.15g,
Setting of the CB-20 module. Photo courtesy of the Sanmen Nuclear Power Project.
