The fourth unit of the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) operated by China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) succeeded in its first grid connection in Guangdong province on Jan 8, authorities announced.

It is the country’s first nuclear unit to generate power in 2017, as well as CGN’s 20th nuclear power generating unit.

Construction of unit 4 began on Nov 17, 2012, and the unit has now begun trial operations. The Yangjiang NPP is one of China’s largest nuclear projects under construction. The plant will have a total of six gigawatt-level units. Units 1, 2 and 3 already began commercial operation in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively. They are of significant importance to south Guangdong’s ecological environment, as they have provided much clean and safe energy.

Unit 5 and 6 are still being erected. Unit 5 is the first of its kind in the country to adopt a domestic distributed control system (DCS), known as “FirmSys”.