In Shandong province, China, Haiyang nuclear power plant has started providing district heating. The country’s first commercial nuclear heating project was carried out in the winter of last year to provide heat to 700,000 square meters of housing, a few local residents and the factory dormitory.

The subsidiary of the State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) and owner of the Haiyang power plant, SDNPC (Shandong Nuclear Power Company), cooperated with Fengyuan Thermal Power, a local company, to carry out a test operation of the entire heating network,.

At the end of October, a test was carried out using steam from the 2 AP1000 reactors in Haiyang. A low-temperature test on the entire heating network was carried out over a period of days from November 12 until November 15, with the system consequently being cleared for use in commercial service. The steam extracted from the secondary circuit of the 2 Haiyang units is non-radioactive and it is then routed to a heat exchange station owned by Fengyuan Thermal Power, where the heated water flows through municipal heating pipes to consumers.

This nuclear-powered heating network should avoid the need to use more than 23,200 tonnes of coal per year as well as reducing soot emissions by 222 tonnes, sulfur dioxide emissions by 382 tonnes, nitrogen oxide emissions by 362 tonnes and carbon dioxide emissions by 60,000 tonnes. By 2021, the entire city of Haiyang is expected to be powered by this device.

Haiyang Plant Unit 1 entered commercial operation in October 2018, Unit 2 followed in January. Together, Haiyang Units 1 and 2 will supply 20 TWh of electricity to the grid annually, which is enough to meet one-third of household demand in Shandong Province.