China / Science
Chinese nuclear reactor shutdown may be ‘a sign of caution over new design’
- The Taishan plant is the first to use an EPR reactor that is meant to be safer
- Developer could be trying to find source of fuel rod damage to alter design in the future, analyst says
Topic |
Energy
Eduardo Baptista and
Sarah Zheng
Published: 9:00pm, 31 Jul, 2021
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The Taishan plant under construction in 2013. It is the first in the world to use a reactor design meant to be safer and more efficient than previous technology. Photo: AFP
The shutdown of a nuclear reactor at a power plant in southern China could signal extra caution over a cutting-edge system that its developers plan to roll out in other countries, according to industry analysts.
China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), which owns 70 per cent of the
Taishan Nuclear Power Plant
, said on Friday it had
closed one of the plant’s reactors
for maintenance work to repair damaged fuel rods.
The decision came one week after French energy conglomerate Électricité de France (EDF), which owns the remaining 30 per cent of the plant, suggested a shutdown of the reactor was necessary.
CGN described its decision on Friday as “conservative”.
The plant opened in 2018 and was the first in the world to use a Generation III+ reactor, also known as a European pressurised water reactor (EPR).
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Framatome, a subsidiary of EDF and a designer and supplier of nuclear reactors, has led the development of the EPR design, a model that is meant to be safer and more efficient than its predecessors.
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The EPR design is also set to be built in other countries, including Finland, France and at Hinkley Point C in Britain. CGN and EDF are major investors in the British project.
Lin Boqiang, director of the Centre for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, said the shutdown was not unexpected given the need to be wary with new designs like the EPR.
“You have to be more cautious when it comes to nuclear plants,” Lin said.
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Framatome, which is responsible for maintenance work at the plant, reportedly asked the US Department of Energy in June for
help to fix a leak at the Taishan plant
, around 130km (80 miles) from Hong Kong.
The company warned of an “imminent radiological threat” amid concerns that the local safety authorities were raising the limits of acceptable radiation levels outside the plant to avoid shutting it down, according to a CNN report.
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Lin said that while EDF said it learned about the build-up of radioactive gases at the plant in mid-June, the fact that the plant was not closed until the end of July suggested that the problem was not serious.
“This is new technology, and as the first unit globally, if there are some issues in the design, then they will need to carry out an investigation to find this out,” he said.
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“If there was a major issue, of course the plant would have been halted on the day of or within a few days of it being reported, so it is likely just a minor issue.”
David Fishman, manager at the energy-focused consultancy The Lantau Group, said it was not industry practice to shut down a reactor immediately to remove and inspect damaged fuel rods – the rods would usually stay in the reactor until the next scheduled refuelling outage.
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“I suspect the French side is wondering whether the fuel rod damage is caused by something that they can directly address by modifying the equipment design, the water chemistry around the fuel, the plant operating procedures, or maybe even the fuel fabrication process to ensure that this doesn’t happen in other plants that are based on the Taishan design,” Fishman said.
“I could understand why they – France – would want China to shut down the reactor and do a root cause inspection, and why they would push the Chinese side to do this.
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“They have significant commercial interest in making this reactor design successful for their pipeline of future work.”
Kathryn Porter, a London-based independent energy consultant, was critical of the EPR design in an article published on her business’s website on Saturday.
“[EDF] has been trying and failing to complete its flagship reactors at Flamanville and Olkiluoto with both schemes a decade late and something around three times over budget,” she wrote, referring to nuclear plant construction projects in France and Finland.
“Although two EPRs were completed at Taishan in China, the lack of transparency around costs and performance means they are rarely held up as genuine proofs of concept.”
