A new R&D center for nuclear power, as to be China’s first privately-run, non-enterprise model nuclear power research institute, was officially inaugurated on Nov 29, at the 2016 nuclear power industry forum in Yantai, Shandong province.
The Yantai R&D center was led by the Yantai municipal government and jointly set up by the China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), the State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) and the Yantai Taihai Group. Major representatives of enterprises and universities, academicians, experts and scholars in the nuclear power industry will serve as experts in the center, which will begin with the opening of ten research institutes.
The Yantai nuclear power R&D center invites influential representatives of enterprises and universities, academicians, experts and scholars in the nuclear power industry to sit on its expert committee.
The center’s first 10 research institutes will be co-built by research institutes affiliated to the CGN, the CNNC and the SPIC and local enterprises under the Yantai Taihai Group. Research will focus on fields including comprehensive utilization of nuclear energy, nuclear-grade equipment and materials, radiation protection and large-capacity energy storage, Internet of Things management and smart data, water treatment at nuclear power plants, thermal management of industrial equipment, structural materials for fast reactors, comprehensive utilization of marine energy, and basic research in thorium molten salt reactors (TMSR).
Shu Guogang, director of the Yantai nuclear power R&D center, said the center will focus on the independently-developed HPR1000 third-generation nuclear power technology, with the aim to turn Yantai into a demonstration base for the R&D of the HPR1000 technology.
Thanks to the construction of the Haiyang nuclear power project， So far, the city has built two provincial nuclear power equipment manufacturing parks in Laishan and Haiyang, and developed certain R&D and production capabilities in the fields of primary piping of nuclear power plants, manufacturing of seawater-circulating pump impellers, containment systems for nuclear power plants and nuclear island refrigeration systems.
