Construction begins on fourth Taipingling unit

"The Board of Directors of CGN Power Co Ltd is pleased to announce that Huizhou Unit 4 of CGN Huizhou No 2 Nuclear Power Co Ltd, a subsidiary of the company, had its first concrete date of the main plant of the nuclear reactor on 10 May 2026, being the commencement date of construction in full-scale of Huizhou Unit 4 and the start of the civil construction phase," China General Nuclear (CGN) said in an announcement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The Taipingling plant will eventually have six Hualong One reactors, with a total investment exceeding CNY120 billion (USD17 billion). The construction of the first and second units began in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Hot testing of unit 1 was completed in September 2024, with that of unit 2 completed in July 2025. Unit 1 attained a sustained chain reaction for the first time (referred to as first criticality) on 3 February this year and was connected to the grid on 13 February. It entered commercial operation on 19 April. Fuel loading at unit 2 was completed last week.

_{How the six units at Taipingling may look (Image: NNSA)}

Construction of the second phase of the Taipingling plant - units 3 and 4 - was approved by China's State Council in December 2023, with construction of unit 3 getting under way in June last year.

Once all six units are completed and put into operation, the annual power generation will exceed 55 billion kilowatt-hours, CGN said. It will also reduce standard coal consumption by about 16.65 million tonnes and carbon dioxide emissions by about 50.82 million tonnes annually.