Tuesday, 7 January 2025
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Weighing almost 1100 tonnes and measuring more than 26 metres long, 29 metres wide and 23 metres high, the concrete and steel CA01 module – composed of 47 sub-modules – sits inside the unit’s containment module where it will house the plant’s reactor pressure vessel, steam generators and other components. It is referred to as a super module because it is too large to be transported by road and rail, and was constructed on site.
The Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute said the installation of the CA01 module on 5 January creates “favourable conditions for the subsequent construction of the internal structure of the nuclear island reactor building”.
The CAP1000 reactor design – the Chinese version of the AP1000 – uses modular construction techniques, enabling large structural modules to be built at factories and then installed at the site.
The largest and heaviest module – the CA20 – was installed at Lianjiang 2 in October last year. That module consists of 32 wall modules and 39 floor modules. It will comprise plant and equipment for used fuel storage, transmission, the heat exchanger and waste collection, among other things.
The construction of the first two 1250 MWe CAP1000 reactors at the Lianjiang site was approved by China’s State Council in September 2022. Excavation works for the units began in the same month, with the pouring of first concrete for the foundation of unit 1 starting in September 2023 and that of unit 2 in April last year. Lianjiang unit 1 is expected to be completed and put into operation in 2028.
Once all six CAP1000 units at the site are completed, the annual power generation will be about 70.2 TWh, which will reduce standard coal consumption by more than 20 million tonnes, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 52 million tonnes, sulphur dioxide by about 171,000 tonnes and nitrogen oxides by about 149,000 tonnes.
State Power Investment Corp says the Lianjiang plant will be the first nuclear power project in China to adopt seawater secondary circulation cooling technology as well as the first to use a super-large cooling tower.
