Framatome has signed a long-term service contract with China’s Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company Limited (TNPJVC) to support operations of two EPRs at the Taishan nuclear plant in China.

This contract covers nuclear plant outage and maintenance work, including spare parts supply and engineering services for eight years.

“This contract marks an important step in our long-lasting collaboration with TNPJVC and illustrates the cooperation between France and China in the nuclear industry, using the lessons learned from our projects and from our experience in nuclear plant operations,” said Catherine Cornand, senior executive vice president of Framatome’s installed base business unit.

Taishan 1, the first commercial and operational EPR began commercial operation in December 2018 and unit 2 in September 2019. The two EPRs, each with a capacity of 1750MWe, are capable of supplying the Chinese power grid with up to 24TWh of low-carbon electricity a year.

The reactors at Taishan were built by TNPJVC, a joint-venture founded by China General Nuclear (51%), EDF (30%) and the Chinese utility Guangdong Energy Group (19%). Framatome, now majority-owned by EDF, supplied the EPR technology for the plant.

Taishan 1&2, which began construction in 2009 and 2010, were the third and fourth EPR units to start being built, after Olkiluoto 3 in Finland and Flamanville 3 in France, both of which are significantly behind schedule and over-budget.

Photo: Taishan nuclear plant (Credit: EDF)