Unit 1 of China’s Taipingling NPP in Guangdong province has begun supplying electricity to the grid for the first time, China General Nuclear (CGN) said. The 1,116 MWe pressurised water reactor is the first of six Hualong One (HPR1000) reactors planned for construction at the site with total investment exceeding CNY120bn ($17bn).
Construction of the units 1&2 (Phase 1) began in 2019 and 2020. Construction of Phase 2 (units 3&4) was approved by the State Council in December 2023 and construction of unit 3 began in June 2025. Hot tests at 1 were completed at unit 1 in September 2024 and at unit 2 in July 2025. Unit 1 received an operating licence from the Ministry of Ecology & Environment on 24 December 2025 and loading of the first fuel assemblies began the same day after approval from China’s National Nuclear Security Administration. A total of 177 fuel assemblies were loaded into the reactor core. The unit achieved criticality earlier in February.
The unit will be put into commercial operation after completion of a series of commissioning tests, including a trial operation lasting 168 hours. This is planned for the first half of 2026, according to CGN. Once operational, it will be able to supply approximately 8.1TWh of electricity to the Greater Bay Area each year, equivalent to a reduction in notional coal consumption of approximately 2.45m tonnes and carbon dioxide emissions of approximately 7.48m tonnes.
“Connecting Taipingling unit 1 to the network is not only an important achievement in the field of independent development of nuclear energy in China, but also fills the gap in the independent operation of third-generation nuclear power units in the Greater Guangdong-Hong Kong-Aomen Bay area,” CGN noted. “With the rapid development of industries such as artificial intelligence and computing power, energy demand in the Greater Bay Area continues to grow, making optimizing the energy mix an urgent task.”
