Construction starts in Russia and China

Июля 08, 2010

Construction has started on two new nuclear power plants this week, making a total of 60 nuclear reactors currently under construction. First concrete was poured for Russia’s Rostov 4 (formerly known as Volgodonsk) on 22 June and was completed at China’s fourth AP1000, Haiyang unit 2 on the same date.

At Haiyang, which is being built by China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation, concreting started on 20 June and was completed on 22 June after just over 40 hours. In total 5112 cubic meters of concrete was poured.
Haiyang 2 is China’s fourth AP1000 to begin construction, joining unit 1 at the same site and Sanmen 1&2 in Zhejiang province. The first of these units Sanmen 1 started construction in April 2009 and is due to come online in August 2013.
Meanwhile, project manager of Rostov 4 described the concrete pour as “an indication that the Russian nuclear industry is reviving flowing construction of nuclear power.” By 22 June over 300 cubic meters of concrete had been poured four the foundations of Rostov 4.
Rostov nuclear power plant is located on the shore of the reservoir in Tsimlyansk, 13.5km from the city of Volgodonsk. In December 2009, Rostov 2 started up joining Rostov 1, a 1000MW VVER-1000 that has been operating commercially since 2001. Currently construction of Rostov 3&4 is being carried out by general contractor, Atomenergoproekt. About 3000 people are working on site and over 30 contractors are involved in the project.