‘Heqi-1’ will use reactors at Tianwan station
China’s first nuclear-powered steam supply project for industrial use, known as Heqi-1, has been officially completed and put into operation in Jiangsu province in the east of the country, state media and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said.
Heqi-1 will use steam extracted from the secondary circuits of Units 3 and 4 of the Tianwan nuclear power station. Both units at the six-unit facility are Russian-supplied VVER-1000 plants.
After passing through multiple heat exchange stages, the steam will be transported via an insulated above-ground pipeline to the Lianyungang Petrochemical Industrial Base, a petrochemical complex that started commercial operations in 2021.
The Tianwan station has been equipped with four steam conversion devices for the project.
The main long-distance steam supply line for the project is about 23 km.
The facility is expected to supply 4.8 million tonnes of steam annually, which will reduce the burning of standard coal by 400,000 tonnes per year, CNNC said.
The project was jointly developed by CNNC subsidiary Jiangsu Nuclear Power Company and the Lianyungang Petrochemical Industry Base.
CNNC said the start of operation of the steam project shows that China’s comprehensive utilisation of nuclear energy has expanded from single power generation and meeting urban residents’ heating needs to the field of industrial steam supply. It said the Heqi-1 project “is a model of clean steam supply for the national petrochemical industry”.
China has a number of projects to use reactors for heating. In April, a project began operation using the Generation IV Shidao Bay-1 nuclear power unit in in Shandong province, northeastern China, to generate residential nuclear heating.
