Construction milestone at Taishan 2 EPR

Wednesday, 5 November 2014

The fourth Areva EPR under construction reached a milestone with the placement of its reactor pressure vessel at the Taishan nuclear power plant in southern China.

The heavy lift operation took place on 30 October and was announced by China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Company (CNI23) today. Placing the vessel requires it to be brought through an equipment hatch horizontally and then rotated through 90 degrees and lowered into place.

Two stills from the lifting process (Images: CNI23)

 
CNI23 said it had developed some new techniques since doing the same thing for Taishan 1 in June 2012. It said an "innovative" way to remove aft lugs from the lifting process had made the process "more short, efficient and safe." The whole operation took eight hours, a reduction of five hours compared with Taishan 1, which CNI23 said "greatly enhanced the efficiency of construction."

Taishan features two 1660 MWe Areva EPR units, which are being built by the 70-30 joint venture of China General Nuclear (CGN) and France's EDF that will also own and operate them. The plant is in China's Guangdong province. Other EPRs are under construction in Finland and France, and are planned for the UK as well as India.

The major components for Taishan 1 were imported: the pressure vessel from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) of Japan and the steam generators from Areva Chalon/St. Marcel in France, but those for Taishan 2 are all made in China: the pressure vessel by Dongfang Electric Co (DEC), two of the steam generators also by DEC and the other two by Shanghai Electric. The Arabelle steam turbines and generators are being purchased separately from Alstom and DEC respectively.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News