The nuclear industry risks being left behind if it fails to follow the example of sectors like aviation to adopt digital technologies, William Magwood, director general of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency said yesterday. Speaking in the plenary session of SNETP Forum 2021, he said the research community must "make the case" for this.

Following a demonstration run lasting 168 hours, unit 5 of the Fuqing nuclear power plant in China's Fujian province entered commercial operation on 30 January, China National Nuclear Corporation has announced. The unit is the first of two demonstration Hualong One reactors at the site and is the world's first Hualong One to be commissioned. Unit 6 is scheduled to begin operation by the end of this year.

A virtual meeting was held on 13-14 January to launch the new Studsvik Material Integrity Life Extension project. The five-year project, supported by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, aims to investigate and improve the understanding of materials ageing and degradation in metallic components during the operation of a nuclear power plant.

The World Association of Nuclear Operators has completed a pre-startup peer review of unit 6 at the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China's Jiangsu province. Travel restrictions amid the pandemic meant the review of the domestically-designed ACPR1000 was carried out using local experts on-site with WANO experts participating remotely.

Armenia plans to extend the service life of its nuclear power unit in Metsamor beyond 2026 and has not abandoned plans to build a new unit, ARKA news agency reported on 14 January, following Cabinet approval of the government's new energy strategy to 2040.

Darlington unit 3 is ready to begin the next stage of its refurbishment - disassembly - after successful separation of the reactor and its systems from the three remaining operating units at the station. Installation of the final 5-tonne section of steel bulkhead needed for the isolation was completed 10 days ahead of schedule.

Unit 2 of the Leningrad II nuclear power plant in western Russia passed 1 terawatt hours of electricity production on 15 January, a milestone in its four months of pilot operation that started in November last year.

Upgrades to safety measures to comply with new regulatory requirements were completed yesterday at unit 7 of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata prefecture, Tokyo Electric Power Company has announced. Although the utility has already received regulatory approval to restart the reactor, it must still obtain local consent.

Unit 3 of the Kakrapar nuclear power plant in India's Gujarat state has been connected to the electricity grid. The reactor - the country's first indigenously-designed 700 MWe pressurised heavy water reactor - achieved criticality in July last year.

Belgium's Federal Agency for Nuclear Control has approved the restart of Tihange unit 2 following a maintenance outage after concluding no new hydrogen flakes have appeared and the existing flakes had not increased in size. Operator Electrabel is required to regularly check that the situation has not changed since the flakes were first discovered in 2012.

The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine has approved a 10-year extension to the operating licence of unit 5 at the Zaporozhe nuclear power plant. The VVER-1000/V-320 reactor was commissioned in August 1989 and its original 30-year licence expired on 27 May 2020. The new licence extends the operation of unit 5 as well as of the facilities technologically related to it.

Tests that simulate the temperatures and pressures which the reactor systems will be subjected to during normal operation have been completed at unit 6 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China's Jiangsu province. The ACPR1000 reactor is scheduled to enter commercial operation by the end of this year.