China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced that China’s oldest power reactor, unit 1 at the Qinshan NPP, has been uprated to 350 MWe (net) from its original 300 MWe. Qinshan 1, a pressurised water reactor brought online in 1991, was the first nuclear power unit built using Chinese technologies. China said the engineering work "has important reference significance for the power enhancement of subsequent power stations, and plays an exemplary role in the life management of domestic nuclear power plants".
CNNC said Qinshan's operational conditions have been stable and performance indicators have been "excellent" since the unit was first connected to the grid. The unit achieved a load factor of 100.2% in 2017 and has averaged 83.5% over its whole lifespan. CNNC said it has "achieved good performance and economic benefit." The reactor has also been a test-bed for the Chinese industry, with over 130 technical updates and improvements a year, CNNC said. Its achievements include a continuous generation run of 469 days in 2007 and a national record refuelling outage of just over 18 days in 2014.
