24 Jul (NucNet): Consortium partners Westinghouse Electric and The Shaw Group today signed multi-billion-dollar definitive contracts to build four AP1000 nuclear reactor units in China.
Two of the units will be built at the Sanmen nuclear plant in Zhejiang province on China’s east coast. The other two will be built at the Haiyang* nuclear plant in Shandong province, also on the east coast.
Specific terms of the contracts were not disclosed, but Westinghouse and Shaw said they were signed with the State Nuclear Power Technology Company of China, Sanmen Nuclear Power Company, Shandong Nuclear Power Company and China National Technical Import & Export Corporation.
A framework agreement for the project was signed in Beijing in March 2007 following China’s announcement in December 2006 that it had awarded the contracts to the Westinghouse-Shaw consortium. Original bids for the four plants were submitted by Westinghouse and others competing for the project in February 2005.
The units will be constructed in pairs. Construction is expected to begin in 2009, with the first unit at Sanmen starting operations in late 2013. The remaining three units are expected to start delivering electricity to the grid in 2014 and 2015.
Preliminary design, engineering and long lead-time procurement work has already begun, Westinghouse and Shaw said.
* The original contracts said the units would be built at the Sanmen and Yangjiang nuclear plant sites, but a Westinghouse spokesman told NucNet today that the Yangjiang site, in Guangdong province, was substituted for Haiyang several months ago at China’s request.
