CGN's subsidiary, the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Operations and Management Company (DNMC), came first in two areas -- Capability Factor and Nuclear Safety/Automatic Scram -- in the annual nuclear power plant (NPP) safety competition held by French nuclear giant Electricite de France (EDF) in Paris on March 28.
The award ceremony of the EDF Safety Challenge Competition takes place in Paris, France on March 28.
As the operator of the Daya Bay NPP and the Ling Ao NPP, DNMC has maintained a top place among similar nuclear power operators with 38 first prizes in total in this global competition.
The two indicators, capability factor and nuclear safety are critical in measuring nuclear safety management and operational performance. Capability factor specifically shows the availability of nuclear power units and is one key indicator of power-generating capacity.
In recent years, the capability factor of the six nuclear units in the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Base has steadily improved, which has enabled DNMC to sustain its championship in this area for 10 consecutive years.
On the other hand, nuclear safety is an indicator to reflect the consecutive days of safe operation without unplanned shutdown of a nuclear unit. The contestants are ranked according to their number of automatic shutdowns in the last three years. Unit 1 of the Ling Ao NPP, which is managed by DNMC, had safely operated for 4,366 days with zero unplanned shutdown as of March 28, 2018, topping its global counterparts.
The certificates for DNMC’s excellent performance on capability factor and nuclear safety
CGN staff members give a thumbs-up for the awarded nuclear units.
The EDF Safety Challenge Competition was launched in 1999 and has become the foremost competition in the nuclear power field. It aims to evaluate the safety performance of the previous year and select winners and best practices for reference. More than 60 units from France, China and South Africa using the same type of reactor take part in the assessment.
Daya Bay Nuclear Power Base, located in Shenzhen, South China’s Guangdong province, has six gigawatt-level nuclear power units in the Daya Bay NPP and the Ling Ao NPP and is the largest light-water pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power base in the world. The base has been operating stably since its first unit went into operation in 1994.
Of the 72 performance indicators for the six units at the base, 61 ranked in the world’s top quartile and 53 were in the world’s top decile in 2017, according to the World Association of Nuclear Operators.
Daya Bay Nuclear Power Base had generated 663.71 billion kWh of on-grid electricity for Guangdong and Hong Kong by the end of 2017, with 236.21 billion kWh exported to Hong Kong.