Sanmen plant to supply steam to industrial park

The memorandum was signed on 21 June by China National Nuclear Power Corporation (CNNC) subsidiary Sanmen Nuclear Power Company, Taizhou Haitou Group, the Linhai Municipal Government, the Sanmen County Government and Rongsheng New Materials (Taizhou) Company.

According to the agreement, the nuclear energy steam supply project will be promoted simultaneously with the Rongsheng Taizhou New Material project. The Sanmen nuclear power plant will provide high-quality industrial steam with an annual output of 10 million tonnes for the first phase of the industrial park.

The project is planned to be completed by the end of 2026, supplying 1800 tonnes of steam per hour.

CNNC noted that, after it is put into operation, the Sanmen project will become the largest nuclear energy steam supply project in China, with an equivalent reduction of 3.33 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.

Both AP1000 units of Phase I at the Sanmen plant began commercial operation in 2018. Two CAP1000 reactors - the Chinese version of the AP1000 - are being constructed as Phase II of the plant.

China's first nuclear energy industrial heating project was officially completed and put into operation in December 2022 at the Qinshan plant in Zhejiang province. The project can provide guaranteed 24-hour heat supply with annual industrial heat supply of about 288,000 gigajoules. This, CNNC said, is equivalent to saving about 10,000 tonnes of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 24,000 tonnes. The Zhejiang Haiyan Nuclear Energy Heating Demonstration Project utilises the remaining thermal power from the Qinshan plant in winter to provide heating to public facilities, residential communities and industrial parks in Haiyan County without affecting the original power generation and safety performance of the reactors.

In November 2020, China's Haiyang plant in Shandong province officially started providing district heat to the surrounding area. A trial of the project - the country's first commercial nuclear heating project - was carried out the previous winter, with the plant's two AP1000 reactors providing heat to 700,000 square metres of housing, including the plant's dormitory and some local residents.

Work started in May 2022 on a project at the Tianwan plant in Jiangsu province to supply steam to a nearby petrochemical plant. Due for completion at the end of 2023, it will be China's first industrial-use nuclear energy steam supply project. In the project, steam will be extracted from the secondary circuits of units 3 and 4 of the Tianwan plant. After passing through multi-stage heat exchange, the heat will be transported via an insulated above-ground pipeline to the Lianyungang Petrochemical Industrial Base for industrial production and utilisation.

The facility is expected to supply 4.8 million tonnes of steam annually, which will reduce the burning of standard coal by 400,000 tonnes per year, and the equivalent emission reduction of 1.07 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, 184 tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 263 tonnes of nitrogen oxides.