Westinghouse Electric Company recently received approval to construct four additional AP1000 reactors in China, bringing its total sum of the global AP1000 fleet to 10 units, according to a press release.
“The Westinghouse AP1000 plant is a fantastic, versatile and proven reactor. It has unique, fully passive safety features that make it the safest, most innovative and compact reactor in the world,” Westinghouse President and CEO Patrick Fragman said in the release. “China and the United States are taking the leadership role as they each demonstrate that the AP1000’s advanced nuclear technology is vital to achieving safe, clean and reliable base-load electricity.”
The four new reactors, Sanmen 3 and 4 in Zhejiang Province, and Haiyang 3 and 4 in Shandong Province join the existing reactors, Sanmen 1 and 2 and Haiyang 1 and 2, built in 2018, and have committed to utilizing “the most advanced, proven AP1000 technology and have set industry records with their outstanding startup, availability and operational performance.”
The AP1000 plant is known to contribute a small presence in the MWE market, including strategies related to small modular reactor concepts.
“Taking full advantage of the AP1000 plant’s outstanding performance in the four existing operating units, and through our successful partnership with State Power Investment Company (SPIC) in China, we expect to achieve an AP1000 plant ‘nth-of-a-kind’ project with the construction cost and schedule of these next four units validating the recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report conclusions regarding the attractive cost and schedule for future AP1000 units,” Fragman said in the release.
The technology will also be used for a six-unit project in India, and other establishments across Central and Eastern Europe including Ukraine, Asia, the United Kingdom and utilities in the United States. The global expansion will be further solidified with an additional two AP1000 units set to conclude soon at the United States’s Vogtle site.