Russia will supply further two reactors the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China’s Jiangsu province after Chinese and Russian officials signed a general construction contract on, TASS news agency reported on Tuesday.
In addition, a technical design contract was signed for a second pair of reactors at the Xudabao site in Liaoning province.
The contracts were signed in Beijing by AtomStroyExport, the engineering division of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).
Rosatom said the contracts had been prepared in accordance with the strategic package of agreements signed during a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to China last June. This package defines cooperation between Russia and China in the nuclear industry in the coming decades, it added.
Those agreements included the construction of two VVER-1200 reactors, like units 7 and 8 of the Tianwan plant, as well as two VVER-1200 units to be built at the new Xudabao site. Contracts for Tianwan 7 and 8 were signed between CNNC and Rosatom in early November marking the implementation of the framework contracts.
Construction of Tianwan Phase III – units 5 and 6 – was originally scheduled to start in early 2011. However, following the March 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, the Chinese government suspended the approval of new nuclear power projects, including those two units.
The latest Five-Year Plan called for the construction of Phase III of the Tianwan plant to be accelerated. CNNC plans to put both units 5 and 6 into commercial operation by the end of 2021.
