China's Commercial Reactors

"Considering China's place in the world today, it is worth noting that the pace of reactor technology development in China was rather slow from the beginning of the commercial nuclear power program in the 1980s through around 2000. An important early decision was to focus the commercial nuclear program solely on pressurized water reactor (PWR) technology — a decision that is credited to the "grandfather of China's nuclear program," former Premier Li Peng.

Early on, China was able to master its own smaller PWR design and also gained valuable experience through the first PWRs to be imported from Framatome (now Areva) at Daya Bay. The CNP-300 reactor deployed at Qinshan Phase I, which was based on the nuclear propulsion reactor designed by China’s military for its submarines, was an important first step in Chinese reactor development and was led by Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute (SNERDI). The localization efforts that began at Daya Bay and which were followed through to the latest Lingao Phase 2 project represents the first successful integration of nearly every aspect of modern nuclear reactor technology by China. The result of this two-decade localization process was the CPR-1000 design, also known as the M310+, which is a significantly advanced version of the 157 fuel assembly PWR series deployed at 34 reactors in France. In fact, the CNP-600 design, which was the successor to the CNP-300, borrowed numerous technical features from the early units built at Daya Bay. This cross-fertilization of reactor technology concepts between the imported designs and local designs is still happening today...."

A proof of the entire article may be downloaded below.