“Hualong One,” China’s first unit equipped with cooling towers, began operation today at the Zhaoyuan 2 unit of CGN.
The No. 2 unit of China General Nuclear Power Group’s Zhaoyuan nuclear power project in Shandong was launched today morning with the pouring of the first concrete for the nuclear island (FCD). The main construction work officially began, and the first-phase of the project has entered the full construction stage. Located in Zhangxing Town, Zhaoyuan City, Yantai, this project is China General Nuclear’s tenth nuclear power base nationwide. It plans to build six “Hualong One” units using China’s fully independent intellectual property rights for third-generation nuclear power technology, with each unit having a rated power of approximately 1.2 million kilowatts. Among them, the No. 2 unit is China’s first “Hualong One” unit equipped with a natural ventilation cooling tower for high-level water collection. Each unit is equipped with a cooling tower reaching 203 meters in height and covering an area of 16,800 square meters, converting the direct cooling source of the conventional island from the sea to the atmosphere. Once fully completed, the project is expected to generate 50 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, sufficient to meet the annual power needs of over 5 million people; this will equivalent to reducing the consumption of standard coal by approximately 15.02 million tons and emitting about 46.2 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, which is equivalent to planting more than 110,000 hectares of forests. According to China General Nuclear’s announcement, the No. 2 unit uses Hualong One nuclear power technology…