Official name 한빛원자력발전소 Location Jeollanam-do Commission date 1986 | Status Operational Reactor type PWR | |
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Operator Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power | ||
The Hanbit Nuclear Power Plant is a large nuclear power station in the Jeollanam-do province of South Korea. The facility runs at an installed capacity of 5,875 MW. The power station is currently ranked as the fifth largest nuclear power station in the world. The plant's name was changed from Yeonggwang NPP to Hanbit in 2013 at the request of local fishermen.
All the units at Hanbit are of the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) reactor type. Unit-1 and Unit-2 are 3-loop Westinghouse-designed plants; major components were sourced from foreign firms while auxiliary components and site construction were handled domestically. Unit-3 and Unit-4 are 2-loop Combustion Engineering (C-E) System 80 plants with major components and construction handled domestically under a technology transfer agreement. Unit-5 and Unit-6 are based on the Ulchin (now Hanul) Unit-3 OPR-1000 Korean Standard Nuclear Power Plant design.
Incidents
In November 2012 security checkups prompted by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster revealed that from 2003 eight suppliers had forged quality certificates for a delivered 7,682 items to the plant. Of the plant's six reactors two were affected by more than 5,000 of those parts and were consequently shut down, for an expected eight weeks. According to Yonhap news agency the incident was likely to seriously undermine the confidence in South Korean nuclear reactors and could thus impede the country's export of nuclear power plants. Knowledge Economy Minister Hong Suk-woo responded that the "government plans to further increase its efforts to export nuclear reactors. In this regard, the government will quickly provide all necessary and accurate facts to prospective foreign buyers to make sure there is not a single shred of doubt left over the safety of the country's nuclear reactors".