French simulator company CORYS, which is co-owned by AREVA and EDF, has completed installation and commissioning of the full scope simulator for the Taishan EPR, currently under construction in Guangdong province, China.

Plant staff will now start using the facility to prepare for commissioning and operation of Taishan 1&2, AREVA said. Up to 100 operators are expected to receive training on the simulator, which is located within Taishan’s onsite training centre.

The simulator features a complete replica of the control room, including the emulation of the instrumentation and control system, the hard panels and high fidelity simulation of all relevant systems of the nuclear plant. It runs on the ALICES ® software platform, which offers a high level of realism. In addition, the simulator is very reactive, with behaviours that are ‘extremely’ faithful to those of the reference plant.

"With the Taishan full scope simulator in service, a major milestone for the plant construction project has been successfully achieved," said Zhou Weichang, head of the Taishan training centre for Taishan Nuclear Power Company, a 70:30 joint venture between China General Nuclear Power and EDF.

CORYS won the contract to supply the simulator for Taishan in late 2009, and it was delivered in July 2014. The simulator is a copy of the Flamanville 3 full scale simulator.