23 Jan (NucNet): Unit one of China’s Tianwan nuclear plant, which achieved first criticality last month, has been temporarily shut down, delaying its connection to the grid.
Grid connection of the unit, which is being constructed with Russian cooperation in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, had been scheduled for the middle of January 2006. But nuclear vendor Atomstroiexport’s chief representative in China, Valeri Kurochkin, said grid connection is now likely to be the end of February 2006. Mr Kurochkin gave no reason for the temporary shut-down.
Tianwan-1 is a Russian-designed light water VVER-1000 unit. Fuel loading was completed in October 2005 when 163 fuel assemblies were loaded into the reactor core. The unit’s operator, the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said hot testing began on 3 December 2005 and first criticality was achieved on 20 December 2005.
Last month, CNNC confirmed that cold testing of the primary and secondary cooling systems at Tianwan-2 had been successfully completed.
Construction of the Tianwan plant is the largest cooperation project between Russia and China. The total capital investment for building both units has been estimated at about three billion US dollars (2.5 billion euros).
Construction of unit one began in October 1999 followed by the start of construction of unit two in September 2000.
China has nine reactor units in operation and four – at Lingao in southern China and Tianwan – under construction. China plans to increase its nuclear generating capacity to 40,000 megawatts (MW) by 2020, up from 6,602 MW today.
>>Related reports in the NucNet database (available to subscribers)
Construction Begins On Phase Two Of Sino-Russian N-Plant (News in Brief No. 317, 27 September 2000)
Fuel Loading Complete At China’s Tianwan-1 (News in Brief No. 93, 1 November 2005)
First Criticality For China’s Tianwan-1 As Progress Continues at Unit 2 (News No. 198, 21 December 2005)
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