Second San'ao unit under construction

In May 2015, the National Energy Administration approved the project to carry out site protection and related demonstration work at San'ao. On 2 September 2020, the executive meeting of the State Council approved the construction of units 1 and 2 as the first phase of the plant. China's National Nuclear Safety Administration issued a construction permit for the two units on 30 December that year and first concrete for unit 1 was poured the following day.

The first concrete for San'ao 2 was poured on 30 December, CGN has now announced.

San'ao 1 and 2 are scheduled to begin supplying electricity in 2026 and 2027, respectively.

Once all six units at San'ao are put into commercial operation, the annual power generation capacity will reach 52.5 billion kWh, which will exceed the annual power consumption of Wenzhou in 2020, CGN noted. The plant could reduce standard coal consumption by over 16 million tonnes and carbon dioxide emissions by 43.36 million tonnes per year, it added.

The San'ao project marks the first Chinese nuclear power project involving private capital, with Geely Technology Group taking a 2% stake in the plant. CGN holds 46% of the shares of the project company Cangnan Nuclear Power, with other state-owned enterprises holding the remainder.

With the official start of construction of San'ao 2, CGN now has seven nuclear power reactors under construction with a total capacity of 8.3 GWe. It currently has 25 units in operation, with an installed capacity of 28.26 GWe.