The demonstration nuclear power plant project (NPP) of High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) at the Shidaowan site was connected to the grid for the first time on December 20, 2021. The project was the First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) NPP of high temperature gas-cooled reactor – Pebble bed Module (HTR-PM) in the world .

This has been achieved through more than 30-years of continuous research by hundreds of Tsinghua scientists, stepping from the basic research of key technologies to the 10MW experimental reactor (HTR-10) at the institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology of Tsinghua University (INET) and to the demonstration project of commercial NPP at Shidaowan. Tsinghua scientists worked closely with their partners, China Huaneng Group and China National Nuclear Corporation, to make HTR-PM a successful record that 93.4 percent of the equipment has been manufactured domestically.

When operating at the rated power, the Shidaowan NPP will generate about 1.4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, providing household electricity for 2 million residents and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 900,000 tons.

From Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology