At 23:02 on March 29, Unit 4 of CGN Power Co., Ltd. (referred to as CGN Power) Ningde NPP was connected to the grid, which not only marks that Unit 4 is available for power generation, but also means that the Phase I Project is to be fully completed.

According to CGN Power’s introduction, the construction of Unit 4 of Ningde NPP was started on September 29, 2010, and its fuel was loaded on December 31, 2015 after civil engineering, installation, commissioning and other processes and its reactor achieved the first critical condition on March 16, 2016. After the first grid-connection, there will be a series of tests for Unit 4 to further validate the safety functions of the unit, and Unit 4 is expected to be officially put into commercial operation in the second half of the year.

Ningde NPP is China’s first large-scale commercial nuclear power plant constructed and put into operation on the western coast of the Taiwan Straits and was planned to build 6 million-kilowatt PWR. For Phase I project, 4 PWR nuclear power units with single capacity of 1.089 GW were built. Depending on CGN’s professional nuclear power project construction and management as well as operation management system, Units 1, 2 and 3 of the plant were officially put into operation respectively on April 15, 2013, May 4, 2014 and June 10, 2015.

After being put into operation, Units 1, 2 and 3 have also maintained safe and stable operation records while providing the economic and social development in Fujian Province with plenty of clean, safe and stable power and they had no safety events that affect the environment or public health. In 2015, 11 of the 27 WANO (the World Association of Nuclear Operators) indicators of the three units reached the international advanced level and 10 reached the international excellent level; the whole plant had no operation events of INES-1 and above and no major personal safety or equipment damage accidents, maintaining overall safety and stability.

In addition, the Phase II Project, namely Units 5 and 6, will adopt China’s own Gen-III nuclear power technology “HPR1000” and preparations are currently made in an orderly way. In the context of increasing pressure on the environment, the construction of Ningde Nuclear Power Plant is of great significance for the protection of the regional environment. After the 4 units of Phase I Project are fully completed, their annual net power generation will exceed 30 billion kilowatt hours, accounting for about 16% of Fujian’s electricity consumption. Compared with same-scale coal-fired power plants, this is equivalent to reducing the consumption of about 9.8 million tons of standard coal, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 24 million tons, sulfur dioxide emissions by about 230,000 tons or nitrogen oxide emissions by about 150,000 tons or afforestation of 67,000 hectares.