The head of the reactor pressure vessel has been installed at one of two high-temperature gas-cooled reactor units under construction at China's demonstration HTR-PM plant in Shidaowan, Shandong province. The demonstration plant's twin HTR-PM reactors will drive a single 210MWe turbine. China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Company Limited (CNI23) announced in late December that the pressure vessel head had been installed on the unit.
Work began on the demonstration HTR-PM unit in December 2012. China Huaneng is leading the construction of the units together with China Nuclear Engineering Corporation (CNEC) and Tsinghua University's Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, which is the research and development leader. Chinergy, a joint venture of Tsinghua and CNEC, is the primary contractor for the nuclear island.
The pressure vessel for Shidaowan 1 was installed in March 2016. The vessel – about 25m tall and weighing some 700 tonnes – was manufactured by Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Equipment. The second reactor pressure vessel was installed later that year. The first of the graphite moderator spheres were loaded into the core of the first reactor in April 2017. In July, the thermal hydraulic parameters of the steam generator were validated.
The demonstration HTR-PM is expected to be connected to the grid and start electricity generation in 2018.
Photo: Vessel head installed at China's HTR-PM (China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Company Limited)
