China’s Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant to be the world’s largest

China – Russia nuclear power collaboration project

China is rapidly expanding the safe use of nuclear power as the country steams toward an ambitious carbon neutrality goal.

The Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant (Tianwan NPP), situated in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China, will be the world’s largest nuclear power plant by output. It is designed to have a safer and smarter performance using third-generation nuclear power technologies. The plant is being constructed with eight units in four phases. Four units of the plant are currently operational, feeding electricity into the power grid. The current expansion plan focuses on two new units of the power plant, which is scheduled to become operational in five years.

On completion, the new project will boost the plant’s total generating capacity of approximately 8,100MW and will produce up to 60 to 70 billion kWh of electricity annually, enough to power 100 million households for three months. That’s the equivalent of 15 million tons of carbon emissions being reduced.

The Tianwan NPP is the largest project being developed under collaboration between China and Russia. According to Power Technology, the construction contract for Tianwan NPP was signed between Atomstroyexport, the engineering division of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom, and China’s Jiangsu Nuclear Power Corporation in December 1997.

The construction of the Tianwan plant also sets a good example of international technology collaboration. Russian engineers and constructors have been working on the site for more than 15 years, providing key knowledge to what is the largest energy partnership between Russia and China.

While some countries, including Germany and Japan, have given second thoughts to construction of nuclear power plants since an earthquake-triggered tsunami dealt a devastating blow to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant a decade ago, China has put the construction and operations of the Tianwan plant under strict safety inspection to make sure it is one of the safest nuclear power plants worldwide.