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It is a triumph for Beijing.

China has started commercial operations of its first nuclear power plant to be built without foreign aid.

For example, Siemens used to apply for new nuclear power plants in China or at least for retrofitting Russian reactors on site with Western safety technology.

That was long ago.

About ten years ago, Siemens left a Franco-German joint venture after the reactor disaster in Fukushima, Japan.

China itself continued to develop its own nuclear power technology and is now reporting independence.

According to the state news agency Xinhua, the People's Republic has just put its first pressurized water reactor into commercial operation with the reactor type Hualong One (HRP1000).

As early as November it was said that Block No. 5 in the city of Fuqing in the eastern Chinese province of Fujian was completed after only five years of construction.

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China is "now at the forefront of the third generation of nuclear technology in the world, alongside countries like the United States, France and Russia," said the head of China National Nuclear Power (CNNC), Yu Jianfeng.

This paves the way for widespread distribution and export of this reactor.

The new reactor can generate ten billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually and prevent 8.16 million tons of CO2 emissions, according to Beijing

Source: picture alliance / Xinhua News Agency

From Beijing's point of view, the in-house development of a nuclear reactor not only helps to cover the country's enormous energy needs and to become independent of foreign technology.

The export of nuclear power plants is also a strategic tool in Beijing's foreign and industrial policy.

Years ago they said they wanted to export around 30 reactors all over the world by 2030.

The more the topic of climate protection comes into focus worldwide, the more Beijing also refers to the CO2 savings through nuclear power.

No country builds more power plants than China

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The new reactor can generate ten billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually and prevent 8.16 million tons of CO2 emissions, according to Beijing.

In autumn 2019, China, the world's largest CO2 emitter, announced its goal of becoming climate neutral by 2060.

Around a dozen nuclear power plants are currently under construction in China - more than in any other country in the world.

According to the WNISR, the World Nuclear Power Plant Association, almost a third of all 50 new nuclear power plants currently under construction worldwide are related to Chinese projects.

For example, two Chinese HRP1000 blocks are being built in Pakistan.

Nuclear energy could potentially contribute up to 20 percent of power generation in China, says CNNC CEO Yu Jianfeng.

At the end of 2020, China had 49 operational nuclear reactor units with an average age of just 8.3 years.

According to the industry association WNISR, nuclear power plants generate just under five percent of the total electricity production.

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For comparison: Germany's six active reactor blocks are on average 34 years old and contributed a good twelve percent to electricity generation in 2019.

In France there are 56 blocks with a good 70 percent nuclear power share.

One of the special features of the new China reactor is that it is based on the basic ideas of a Franco-German technology that was once promoted by Siemens-KWU with Framatome-Areva and called ERP (European Pressurized Reactor).

In 2018, for example, China commissioned the first reactor with Framatome's ERP technology.

The focus of the third generation of these pressurized water reactors is a special safety technology with a core catcher.

With this, the engineers hope to encase the reactor core in the event of a catastrophic core meltdown.

Even without participating in nuclear technology, China, with its huge hunger for energy, remains a market of the future for the now independent listed company Siemens Energy.

Of the total turnover of 27.5 billion euros (fiscal year 2020), 1.7 billion euros (plus 15 percent) came from China.

Practically at the same time as the cheers from Beijing about its own reactor technology, Siemens Energy announced that it was building an innovation center in Shenzhen, China, for energy technology of the future.

The focus is on “intelligent energy systems, modern gas turbines and green hydrogen”.