Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Phase I Marks 10th Anniversary of Commercial Operation: Two Units Have Cumulatively Supplied Over 160 Billion kWh, with WANO Indicators Achieving Full Marks for Seven Consecutive Years

Recently, Phase I of the Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Plant under China General Nuclear Power Group officially ushered in the 10th anniversary of its commercial operation. As the first nuclear power project in western China and in an ethnic minority region, the two million-kilowatt-class pressurized water reactor units at the site have maintained safe and stable operation for ten years since being put into operation. Their WANO composite index has achieved full marks for seven consecutive years, and they have cumulatively delivered over 160 billion kWh of clean electricity to the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone.

It is understood that Phase I of the Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Project is located on Qisha Peninsula in Fangchenggang City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and is an important energy backbone project of the national Western Development Strategy. The project planned to build two self-developed CPR1000 pressurized water reactor nuclear power units with a single-unit capacity of 1.08 million kilowatts. Unit 1 and Unit 2 were successively put into commercial operation on January 1 and October 1, 2016, respectively, completely ending the history of Guangxi having no nuclear power units and fundamentally reshaping the regional backbone power supply support system.

During the construction of Phase I, the project's comprehensive equipment localization rate exceeded 80%, successfully overcoming multiple key technical barriers in nuclear island construction and equipment manufacturing, and accumulating engineering and operational achievements for China's subsequent nuclear power industry to realize fully independent research and development, standardized design, and large-scale batch construction. It has successively won multiple honors, including the National Quality Benchmark and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Chairman Quality Award.

In terms of operation and maintenance safety control, the plant implements a deep nuclear safety culture, continuously deepening multi-unit fleet management, long-cycle equipment reliability governance, and refined management models for shutdown refueling overhauls. Multiple advanced operation and maintenance methods have been technically promoted within the industry. At present, Phase I stably outputs about 15 billion kWh of zero-carbon electricity each year, effectively safeguarding regional industrial production and the daily electricity demand of a population in the tens of millions.

In terms of energy conservation, emission reduction, and ecological benefits, using a conventional coal-fired power plant of equivalent installed capacity as the reference baseline, Phase I of the Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Project has cumulatively reduced standard coal consumption by more than 49.28 million tons over ten years of operation, cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 150 million tons, and significantly reduced sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. Its environmental benefits are equivalent to adding about 360,000 hectares of afforestation.

While ensuring energy supply, Fangchenggang Nuclear Power deeply empowers the local real economy and has driven the clustering of upstream and downstream nuclear energy industrial chains, such as high-end equipment manufacturing and specialized maintenance services, along the coast of the Beibu Gulf. With the two “Hualong One” third-generation nuclear power units of Phase II fully completed and put into operation successively, and the preliminary planning for Phase III steadily advancing, the site has established a mature framework for iterative succession and intensive development of advanced nuclear energy technologies.