South China Regional Office of the National Nuclear Safety Administration Completes Refueling Outage Inspection of Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2

The South China Regional Office of Nuclear and Radiation Safety Supervision of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment successfully completed the nuclear safety supervision and inspection of the first criticality control point for the eighth refueling outage of Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2 on October 11. After verifying item by item the prerequisites for reactor recriticality and confirming that the primary loop and related systems and equipment were in a controlled and compliant state, the supervisors signed off and released the criticality control point in accordance with the law, marking the successful completion of the on-site nuclear safety supervision task for the Y208 refueling outage of the unit.

During the overlapping period of the 2026 Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, multiple operating units at several nuclear power bases along the South China coast successively entered routine refueling outage cycles, with on-site maintenance activities highly concentrated, and nuclear safety supervision facing the dual challenge of overlapping windows and heavy responsibilities. To ensure the quality of key operations and the safe and controlled operation of units during the holidays, the South China Regional Office persisted in going deep into the front-line maintenance sites, dynamically tracking the progress of key processes and the closed-loop resolution of various equipment defects, urging operating units to conduct in-depth root cause analysis and immediate corrective actions for problems found during inspections, firmly holding the bottom line of nuclear safety.

On the first day after the holidays, the South China Regional Office immediately deployed professional supervision forces to the Yangjiang nuclear power site, launching a comprehensive battle for the special control point verification before the recriticality of the Y208 outage. Through overnight continuous operations, the inspection team conducted a carpet-style screening of the completion quality of critical path activities and the preparation of prerequisites for criticality tests, strictly in accordance with nuclear safety technical specifications.

During the verification process, supervisors focused on core risk points including foreign material control for the primary loop pressure boundary of the nuclear island, conduct standards for front-line maintenance and reactor operator personnel, and the closed-loop handling principles for major technical issues, and put forward clear regulatory requirements. The inspection team urged the operating unit to firmly establish the concept of safety first during unit state transitions, strictly implement the conservative decision-making mechanism, and ensure the unit resumes controlled chain fission reaction at the highest quality level.

Currently, the number of operating nuclear power units in South China continues to grow, and the overlap of outage cycles among different nuclear power bases and long-cycle power guarantee have become normalized operational characteristics. Facing increasingly heavy on-site supervision tasks, the South China Regional Office stated it will continue to implement the nuclear safety supervision philosophy of independence, professionalism, rigor and prudence, and efficiency, taking the refueling outage critical physical milestone as the top priority in full-lifecycle supervision of unit operation, and safeguarding the smooth operation of regional nuclear power units with rigorous rule of law and cutting-edge regulatory capabilities.