Kori Nuclear Power Plant
The Kori Nuclear Power Plant (Korean: 고리원자력발전소, Hanja: 古里原子力發電所) is a South Korean nuclear power plant located in Kori, a suburban village in Busan. It is the world's largest fully operational nuclear generating station by total reactor count and the number of currently operational reactors since 2016, after it exceeded in nameplate capacity Canada's Bruce Nuclear Generating Station. It is owned and operated by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, a subsidiary of KEPCO. The first reactor began commercial operation in 1978 and operated until 2017 when it was decommissioned. Units 2, 3, and 4 started commercial operations in the 1980s. All reactors on site are pressurized water reactors.
| Kori Nuclear Power Plant | |
|---|---|
.jpg.webp){kind=spacer} Kori Nuclear Power Plant, Reactors Kori 1, Kori 2, Kori 3, Kori 4 from right to left. | |
| Official name | 고리원자력발전소 (kori) |
| Country | South Korea |
| Location | Gori, Busan |
| Coordinates | 35.319904°N 129.290053°E |
| Status | Operational |
| Construction began | Unit 1: 1 August 1972 Unit 2: 23 December 1977 Unit 3: 1 October 1979 Unit 4: 1 April 1980 Unit 5: 16 June 2006 Unit 6: 5 June 2007 Unit 7: 16 October 2008 Unit 8: 19 August 2009 |
| Commission date | Unit 1: 29 April 1978 Unit 2: 25 July 1983 Unit 3: 30 September 1985 Unit 4: 29 April 1986 Unit 5: 28 February 2011 Unit 6: 20 July 2012 Unit 7: 20 December 2016 Unit 8: 29 August 2019 |
| Decommission date | Unit 1: 18 June 2017 |
| Owner(s) | Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power |
| Operator(s) | Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power |
| Nuclear power station | |
| Reactor type | PWR |
| Reactor supplier | Westinghouse KEPCO E&C |
| Cooling source | Sea of Japan |
| Thermal capacity | 1 × 1882 MWth 2 × 2912 MWth 2 × 2825 MWth 2 × 3983 MWth |
| Power generation | |
| Units operational | 1 × 640 MW 1 × 1011 MW 1 × 1012 MW 2 × 996 MW 1 × 1416 MW 1 × 1418 MW |
| Make and model | 3 × WH-F 2 × OPR-1000 2 × APR-1400 |
| Units under const. | 2 × 1340 MW APR-1400 |
| Units decommissioned | 1 × 576 MW WH-60 |
| Nameplate capacity | 7489 MW (net) |
| Capacity factor | 74.45% (includes Units 1 & 7) |
| Annual net output | 43,148 GW·h (2016) (includes Units 1 & 7) |
| External links | |
| Website | www |
| Commons | Related media on Commons |
Reactors
An expansion of the plant begun in 2006 added four new Korean-sourced reactors, the so-called Shin Kori reactors (Korean: 신고리; shin 신 meaning "new"). The first pair of Shin Kori reactors are of the OPR-1000 design, while the second two are the APR-1400 design. Shin Kori 1 and 2 achieved commercial operations in 2011 and 2012 respectively, with Shin Kori 3 and 4 achieving commercial operations in 2016 and 2019. Construction on two further APR-1400 reactors, known as Shin Kori-5 and Shin Kori-6, was started in April 2017 and September 2018, respectively.[1][2]
In November 2019, the reactor pressure vessel of the 1340MWe APR-1400 reactor to be housed in Shin Kori 5 was installed.[3] As of November 2019, construction on the Shin Kori 5 and 6 was 51 percent complete.[3]
Kori Nuclear Power Plant became the largest operating nuclear power plant in the world by nameplate capacity after the commissioning of Shin Kori 4. Only the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant has a larger nameplate capacity, though it was idled after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and has not been restarted as of 2023.
| Name | Capacity (net) |
Design | Construction start | First criticality | Commercial start | Permanent Shutdown | NSSS | Turbine generator | A-E | Construction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phase I | ||||||||||
| Kori-1 | 576 MW | WH-60 | 1972-08-01 | 1977-06-19 | 1978-04-29 | 2017-06-18 | Westinghouse | GEC Turbines (Rugby) | Gilbert | Westinghouse |
| Kori-2 | 640 MW | WH-F | 1977-12-23 | 1983-04-09 | 1983-07-25 | Westinghouse | GEC Turbines (Rugby) | Gilbert | Westinghouse | |
| Kori-3 | 1011 MW | WH-F | 1979-01-01 | 1985-01-01 | 1985-09-30 | Westinghouse | GEC Turbines (Rugby) | Bechtel | Hyundai | |
| Kori-4 | 1012 MW | WH-F | 1980-04-01 | 1985-10-26 | 1986-04-29 | Westinghouse | GEC Turbines (Rugby) | Bechtel | Hyundai | |
| Phase II | ||||||||||
| Shin Kori-1 | 996 MW | OPR-1000 | 2006-06-16 | 2010-07-15 | 2011-02-28 | KHNP/KEPCO | Doosan | KOPEC | Hyundai | |
| Shin Kori-2 | 996 MW | OPR-1000 | 2007-06-05 | 2011-12-27 | 2012-07-20 | KHNP/KEPCO | Doosan | KOPEC | Hyundai | |
| Shin Kori-3 | 1416 MW[4] | APR-1400 | 2008-10-16 | 2015-12-29 | 2016-12-20[5] | KHNP/KEPCO | Doosan | KOPEC | Hyundai | |
| Shin Kori-4 | 1418 MW[6] | APR-1400 | 2009-08-19 | 2019-04-08[7] | 2019-08-29[8] | KHNP/KEPCO | Doosan | KOPEC | Hyundai | |
| Shin Kori-5 | 1340 MW | APR-1400 | 2017-04-01 | 2022[7] | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | ||
| Shin Kori-6 | 1340 MW | APR-1400 | 2018-09-20 | 2023[7] | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | ||
Kori-1 was shutdown in June 2017 in advance of decommissioning beginning in 2022 after its spent nuclear fuel is removed.[9] Decommissioning will take 15 years to complete and will cost an estimated KRW719.4 billion (US$639.5 million).[10]
Incidents
Minor incidents
On 9 February 2012, during a refueling outage, loss of off-site power (LOOP) occurred and emergency diesel generator (EDG) 'B' failed to start while EDG 'A' was out of service for scheduled maintenance, resulting in a station blackout (SBO). Off-site power was restored 12 minutes after the SBO condition began.
The LOOP was caused by a human error during a protective relay test of the main generator. The EDG 'B' failing to start was caused by the failure of the EDG air start system. Further investigation revealed that the utility did not exercise proper control of electrical distribution configuration to ensure the availability of the Station Auxiliary Transformer (SAT) while conducting test on the Unit Auxiliary Transformer (UAT).
After restoring off-site power through the SAT, the operators eventually recovered shutdown cooling by restoring power to a residual heat removal pump. During the loss of shutdown cooling for 19 minutes, the reactor coolant maximum temperature in the hot leg increased from 37°C to 58.3°C (approximately 21.3°C rise), and the spent fuel pool temperature slightly increased from 21°C to 21.5°C. There was no adverse effect on the plant safety as a result of this event, no radiation exposure to the workers, and no release of radioactive materials to the environment. However, inconsistent with the requirements, the licensee did not report the SBO event to the regulatory body in a timely manner and did not declare the "alert" status of the event in accordance with the plant emergency plan. The licensee reported this event to the regulatory body about a month after the event had occurred.[11]
On 2 October 2012 at 8:10 a.m., Shin Kori-1 was shut down after a warning signal indicated a malfunction in the control rod system which triggered an investigation to verify the exact cause of the problem.[12]
In June 2013, Kori-2 was shutdown, and Kori-1 ordered to remain offline, until safety-related control cabling with forged safety certificates is replaced.[13] Control cabling installed in the APR-1400s under construction failed flame and other tests, so need to be replaced delaying construction by up to a year.[14]
In October 2013, cable installed in Shin Kori-3 failed safety tests, including flame tests. Replacement with U.S. manufactured cable delayed the startup of the plant,[14][15] which eventually entered commercial operation 3 years late.[5]
References
- "PRIS – Reactor Details". Archived from the original on 23 September 2018. Retrieved 17 October 2018.
- "PRIS – Reactor Details". Archived from the original on 18 October 2018. Retrieved 17 October 2018.
- "Reactor vessel installed at Shin Kori 5 – Nuclear Engineering International". neimagazine.com. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
- "PRIS – Reactor Details". Archived from the original on 22 September 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
- "First Korean APR-1400 enters commercial operation". World Nuclear News. 20 December 2016. Archived from the original on 24 August 2017. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
- "PRIS – Reactor Details".
- "South Korea starts up second APR-1400 : New Nuclear – World Nuclear News". Archived from the original on 28 April 2019. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
- "Second-APR-1400-unit-starts-commercial-operation". Retrieved 3 September 2019.
- "Korea to decommission its oldest reactor". Nuclear Engineering International. 12 June 2017. Archived from the original on 25 July 2017. Retrieved 21 July 2017.
- Kraev, Kamen (25 October 2017). "Decommissioning of Kori-1 Could Take Over 15 Years, South Korean Media Say". The Independent Global Nuclear News Agency. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
- "Loss of shutdown cooling due to station blackout during refueling outage". IAEA. 23 April 2012. Archived from the original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
- Yonhap News (2 October 2012) Nuclear reactor halts operation due to malfunction Archived 4 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- "New component issues idle Korean reactors". World Nuclear News. 28 May 2013. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
- "Recabling delays Shin Kori start ups". World Nuclear News. 18 October 2013. Archived from the original on 30 October 2013. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
- "Shin-Kori 3 receives replacement cables". Nuclear Engineering International. 30 September 2014. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
External links
Media related to Kori Nuclear Power Plant at Wikimedia Commons- Kori plant overview