Chinese tempo: A dome has been installed on the Ningde 5 reactor.

The external dome of the reactor containment building, weighing 270 tons, has been successfully raised and installed on the fifth unit of the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in Fujian Province, China

The lifting and positioning process of the 45-meter-diameter dome lasted a total of two hours and forty-five minutes. With this step, according to China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), this HPR1000 (Hualong One) reactor type officially moves from the construction phase to the heavy equipment installation phase.

The reactor block dome represents a key safety barrier whose task is to ensure structural integrity, hermeticity, and retention of radioactive materials in the event of a potential release of radioactive material from the core. The structure was raised using a massive crawler crane to the height of a 20-story building, after which it was fitted into place with millimetre-precision.

What is crucial about this news for the professional public and analysts is the timeframe and the speed with which the Chinese implement third-generation projects:

• The Chinese State Council approved the construction of Blocks 5 and 6 at the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant on July 31, 2023. The cornerstone for the nuclear island of Block 5 was poured less than a year later—July 28, 2024.
• And in less than two years from the start of concreting, the reactor building was structurally completed and enclosed by the dome.
• It is planned that the reactor will be connected to the grid in 2029 – which means China is projecting a total construction time for a large reactor of over 1,000 megawatts in just five years.

At the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant, four older CPR-1000 reactors (each with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts) are already in commercial operation, brought online successively between 2013 and 2016.

And we highlight the news – as almost always when it comes to China – because this country most directly and visibly demonstrates the advantages of standardization and serial construction. The Hualong One model is built on a production-line basis because Chinese companies have secured complete infrastructure – including experienced engineering teams who practically go from construction site to construction site. Overall, this makes the economic calculation and the price of the entire investment drastically more favorable than in the West.

S.A.