Concrete pouring for the No. 1 unit of the Zhaoyuan Nuclear Power Plant in east China's Shandong Province began on Tuesday, marking the official start of full-scale construction of the facility.
The power plant is the first "Hualong One" nuclear plant in China that features a cooling tower.
"Hualong One" is a third-generation nuclear technology independently developed by China, and currently has the largest number of operational and under-construction units worldwide.
The No. 1 unit's nuclear island covers an area of over 2,000 square meters, equivalent to five basketball courts.
"The total concrete pour amounted to 8,823 cubic meters, taking approximately 55 hours to complete. We divided the pour into six sections, casting the entire structure in a single continuous operation," said Wei Jinsuo, head of the Zhaoyuan Nuclear Power Plant project at China Nuclear Industry Huaxing Construction Co.,Ltd.
A high-level water collection (HWC) cooling tower is being used for cooling the conventional island system, reducing the use of water by reusing cooling water. This is different to traditional, open-loop cooling systems where water is drawn from the sea, passed through the plant, and then returned.
"Hot water from the conventional island plant enters the cooling tower, then gets pumped to a water distributor. After reaching this distributor, the hot water is dispersed to the storage tank platform. Once cooled, the water flows to the collector, then to the pump house, and finally back into the conventional island," said Wang Xiaowei, head of the Zhaoyuan Nuclear Power Plant project at China Nuclear Power Engineering Co.,Ltd.
The project will include six "Hualong One" reactors, with a combined installed capacity of approximately 7.2 million kilowatts. Once complete, it will meet the annual electricity demand of about five million people for both residential and industrial use.
"Upon completion and commissioning, these six units will generate 50 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually. This will reduce standard coal consumption by approximately 15.27 million tons per year and cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 46.2 million tons -- equivalent to planting over 110,000 hectares of forest," said Yu Xiangdong, director of the Zhaoyuan Nuclear Power Plant project at China General Nuclear Power Corporation.
China starts construction on new nuclear power plant
China starts construction on new nuclear power plant
The ongoing China-ASEAN Expo serves as a bridge for China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to boost trade flows, helping both sides reap shared development dividends.
Scheduled to run from Sept 17 to 21 in Nanning City of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the event draws more than 3,400 exhibitors from over 70 countries and regions.
This year, Timor-Leste is participating for the first time as a full ASEAN member and a co-host of the expo, with participants noting results have exceeded expectations, bolstered by China's vast market.
"I brought 60 packages of 250-gram coffee, which would be sold out in one day. Now I'm thinking that China market is open for everybody and it's very huge," said an exhibitor from Timor-Leste.
Participants also hailed the construction of China's Pinglu Canal, which officially opened to traffic on Wednesday.
The 134.2-km-long canal runs from Hengzhou, a county-level city in Guangxi, to the Beibu Gulf, the closest maritime outlet for much of southwest China.
The canal becomes a cost-competitive river-sea intermodal shortcut connecting ASEAN producers with the vast consumer market in southwest China, said the participants.
"In the past, shipments into the southwest China usually went by sea to Guangzhou and then overlands. Too many handover made it hard to keep products fresh. Losses were high and transit time was unreliable. Now that the canal is open, we can enter [the] Guangxi [Zhuang Autonomous Region] directly from the Beibu Gulf and move on to Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan restaurants, faster onto the supermarket shelves and tables in the southeast [part of China]," said an exhibitor from Vietnam.
With the formal signing of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA) 3.0 Upgrade Protocol in Oct 2025, bilateral cooperation has expanded beyond economic and trade areas to emerging fields such as the digital economy and the green economy.
"I am looking for an investor to develop agriculture and integrated tourism with us in Malaysia," said an exhibitor from Malaysia.
Economic ties between China and ASEAN have continued to deepen. Bilateral trade topped 1 trillion U.S. dollars for the first time in 2025, totaling 1.05 trillion dollars, up 7.4 percent year on year. In the first seven months of 2026, trade between the two sides reached 744.41 billion dollars, an increase of 24.7 percent year on year and accounting for 21.8 percent of China's total foreign trade.
China has remained ASEAN's largest trading partner for 17 consecutive years, while ASEAN has been China's largest trading partner for six successive years.
China-ASEAN Expo boosts bilateral cooperation, delivers shared dividends
