Introduction to Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant

Tuesday, 19 May 2009 10:10

The Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) has been in continuous commercial service for 15 years since 1994. This article aims give readers both a general overview and a clear picture of Daya Bay NPP, and help provide a basic understanding of Daya Bay’s evolution and progress over the past 14 years.
General Introduction:

The Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station is located in the Huiyang District of Huizhou City, in Guangdong Province. It occupies 488 square kilometers with a coastline of 52 kilometers. It was the second nuclear power plant built in China mainland and the first to introduce French technologies of M310 to the construction. The station’s exact geographic coordinates are latitude of 22 ° 36'02 .70 "and longitude of 114 ° 32'57 .75".

History:
Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station was originally built to provide Hong Kong with additional electricity supply. As Hong Kong's power supply became increasingly constrained in the early 1980s, the PRC Ministry of Water Resources and Power and the Guangdong Provincial Government began to make plans to build a nuclear power plant near Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. The power plant acquired its name from its location on the edge of the Daya Bay Village. The power station shares an electricity supplier in Hong Kong, and most of its electricity is sold to Hong Kong. Construction of the power station was delayed by many events during the preparatory period, including mounting opposition to the NPP project in Hong Kong, and disputes between the United Kingdom Government and Chinese government on the issue of attribution, such as the Hong Kong case eventually, but delayed the construction of nuclear power stations. After overcoming all the difficulties, GNPJVC (Guang dong Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company Limited), who was the owner of the Daya Bay NPP decided to introduce French nuclear island technologies and equipments from Framatome, which is one of Areva’s subsidiary companies at present; and the British conventional island technologies and equipments from GEC Turbine Generators Limited；EDF of France purchased the corollary equipments and COGEM of France supplied the nuclear fuel assembly. Besides, GNPJVC signed a quality-assurance service contract with BECHTEL of USA to supervise the on-site project and provide assistance. After all the procedures, the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station was started in 1987, the use of pressurized water reactor technology, the installation of two generating units at 900 MW, and in 1994 all the grid.

Once construction of the Daya Bay NPP was completed, the Chinese government started work on another new nuclear power plant, named Lingao NPP, 1,000 meters West of Daya Bay. Designed to comprise four 1,000 MW units, the Lingao Nuclear Power Station would be built in two phases. Construction work on the first-stage began in 1997, with the installation of two pressurized water reactor generating units that were technically a reproduction and improvement on the Daya Bay NPP. Operations at phase one were launched in 2002. The project’s second phase of the same type as the two pressurized water reactor generating units will be built between the first project and the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station.

Administrative Organization:
Established in March 2003 through the joint investment of Guangdong Nuclear Power Joint Venture Co., Ltd. (GNPJVC) and Ling Ao Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. (LANPC), Daya Bay Nuclear Power Operations and Management Co., Ltd. (DNMC) handles the operations and management of GNPS and LNPS, and both the operations preparation and operations management of LNPS Phase II.

As the first professional operations and Management Company for nuclear power stations in China, DNMC is built on the good practices of nuclear power stations operations and management abroad. The company’s purpose is to implement professionalized management of CGNPG’s nuclear power stations. It carries out multi-reactor management in the case of the Daya Bay NPP, and answers the State Council’s call to separate power station property rights and management.
DNMC was set up as an independent legal entity and operates strictly in compliance with modern enterprise systems including a Board of shareholders, Board of Directors, Supervisory Committee and Management Structure. DNMC general management is responsible for the conduct of company business under the leadership of the Board of Directors.
"Safety First, Quality First" captures DNMC’s foremost principle. "Safe Production, Pursuit of Excellence, Staff Values and Team Spirit" are the values that DNMC cherishes. With a company culture focused on safety and emphasizing transparency and feedback, DNMC is making every effort to operate the stations to a world-class standard.

Units Introduction:

Daya Bay instrumentation, such as differential pressure transmitters, is for the most part import: the conventional island mainly uses Rosemount1151 products and the nuclear island products manufactured by Schlumberger of France; the recorder uses equipment produced by CIS (France), Chessel (UK) and Kent (UK); the conventional island actuator uses Rorok1400 (UK) products and the nuclear island Joucomcotic (France) and Auma (Germany) products; as for the control valve, Masonelan (USA) products are popular.

Achievements:
Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant is China’s first large commercial nuclear power plant with two PWR units of 9.84 thousand kw. It was built with an annual power generation capacity of 15 billion kw/h, to be shared between Hong Kong (70%) and Guangdong province (30%). The power plant was put into commercial operation on May 6th, 1994.

Since the Daya Bay NPP was put into operation, it has run well with all specifications reaching an advanced international standard. In 2004, DNMC was awarded the first prize in a competition held by EDF in items such as “safe operations record”, “industry safety” and “radioactive protection”.

In 2005, Daya Bay NPP’s average capability factor was 89.86%, while its charge factor was 89.62%.

In 2008, Daya Bay NPP achieved an outstanding level of performance in terms of both power production and operational safety. Annual output exceeded 15 billion kw/h for the first time and reached its highest point since the beginning of operations. Meanwhile, Daya Bay NPP has maintained safe, efficient power generation operations over a sustained period of time: on December 30th, 2008, the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station Unit 1 totaled cumulated output of 200 billion kw/h over 2,355 days of smooth and safe operations. Since January 12th, 2002, the Daya Bay NPP has held a perfect record in terms of non-planned fuel cycle shutdowns and safety of operations as a domestic single unit. Daya Bay still holds the best record in China in these areas.

In 2008, after 15 years of stable operations, Daya Bay paid off its construction debt for a total amount of USD 5.7 billion. Daya Bay provides Hong Kong with a quarter of its electricity consumption. Meanwhile, in a 2007 survey, 8 out of 9 of Daya Bay NPP’s specifications satisfied international standards, while 3 out of 9 satisfied advanced standards.
The graph below shows the electric output of Daya Bay and Lingao NPP over the past 6 years.

Electricity Sales – Organizational Structure:

[GNPJVC]: Guangdong Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company Limited
[GNIC]: Guangdong Nuclear Investment Company Limited
[HKNI]: Hong Kong Nuclear Investment Company Limited
Daya Bay Key Events:
2008
December 31st: Cumulated grid power generated reaches 30.5 billion kW/h, a breakthrough since the start of operations.
2007
November 15th: Unit 1 is successfully connected to the grid and completes 12th refueling after reparation period of 28.59 days, the best record since the start of operations.
2006
March 9th: Unit 1 sets record with 1,416 days of continuous non-planning operations, also a new record for a single unit’s safe operations.
2005
December 13th: Cumulated grid power produced by Daya Bay and Lingao NPP reaches 200 billion kW/h.
2004
April 24th: Unit 2 starts tenth overhaul and sets new record with 404 days of continuous operations with non-stop of all fuelling systems.
2003
May: Daya Bay Nuclear Power Operations and Management Co., Ltd. is established to handle the management of operations at Daya Bay and Lingao NPP.
2002
April 3rd: Cumulated grid power produced by Daya Bay NPP reaches 100 billion kW/h.