Westinghouse Electric Co. and its customers, China State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. and Shangdong Nuclear Power Co. that Haiyang Unit 1, the AP1000 nuclear power plant located in Haiyang, Shandong Province, China, has begun to load fuel.

Fuel load at Haiyang Unit 1 commenced at 7:36 p.m. (GMT+8) Friday. Earlier this summer, in preparation for fuel load, Haiyang Unit 1 successfully completed the necessary testing and regulatory reviews conducted by China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA). Haiyang Unit 1 met all the criteria, confirming the capability of Westinghouse’s AP1000 technology.

The plant’s start-up process includes the completed testing phase, the currently occurring fuel load, initial criticality and synchronization to the electrical grid including ascension to 100 percent power. Testing will be performed throughout these phases to ensure safe plant operations until the unit successfully achieves 100 percent power.

Westinghouse currently has six AP1000 nuclear power plants progressing through construction, testing and start-up. These projects include two units in Sanmen, Zhejiang Province, China, two units in Haiyang, Shandong Province, China, as well as two units under construction at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant near Waynesboro, Georgia, USA.