China warms to atomic-based heating

BEIJING: Chinese energy companies are gearing up to expand nuclear power-based heating projects in more areas in the country, given the likelihood that the option will be more widely embraced as nuclear energy development accelerates.

Two nuclear heating projects – one in Haiyang, Shandong province and one in Zhejiang province’s Haiyan county – were deployed this past winter, demonstrating the technology’s advantages.

Such projects are created by connecting a nuclear plant’s heating system to traditional nuclear units. It extracts non-radioactive steam from the circuit of nuclear units, which is then fed through a multistage heat exchanger in an on-site station. The heat is then fed to an off-site heat exchange station belonging to a local thermal power company, where heated water flows through municipal heating pipes to consumers.

Nuclear heating was used by more than 200,000 residents in Haiyang for 143 days during the winter, according to its operator, State Power Investment Corp. The company plans to expand the heating area to the entire Jiaodong peninsula.

The first phase of the company’s nuclear heating project in 2019 provided carbon-free heating to 700,000 sq metres of space, followed by the second phase, which increased the area to five million sq metres in 2021.

The third phase of the company’s 900-megawatt nuclear power-based heating project – the country’s largest single-unit steam extraction heating project – is under construction and is expected to start providing clean heating by next winter.

The project will also involve new energy and energy storage technologies to better manage the consumption of clean energy and cross-region heating, it said.

China National Nuclear Corp, operator of the first nuclear heating demonstration project in the eastern part of China, in Zhejiang’s Haiyan county, said it also will expand its nuclear power-based heating projects to more areas in China. It plans to cover four million sq metres by 2025, after serving more than 4,000 Haiyan households this past winter.