China National Nuclear Corporation starts loading fuel at Sanmen-1 nuclear reactor

It will be commissioned later this year.

Chinese state-run company China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and Westinghouse have started to load fuel into the Sanmen-1 nuclear reactor in the Zhejiang province of China, following the issuance of a permit by the country's nuclear regulator (National Nuclear Safety Administration or NNSA). The unit is expected to be commissioned later in 2018 and will become the first Westinghouse AP1000 to enter operation.

In total, China plans to bring five nuclear reactors online by the end of 2018, boosting the nuclear installed capacity by 6 GWe: two AP1000s (Sanmen-1 and Haiyang-1), one EPR (Taishan-1), one VVER-1000 (Tianwan-3) and one ACPR1000 (Yangjiang-5). The country expects to reach the target of around 58 GWe of installed nuclear generating capacity by 2020 from the current 35 GWe and estimates that a further 30 GWe will be under construction by 2020.

This article was originally published by Enerdata.