Dome Lift Completed for CGN Ningde Unit 5 Hualong One, Clearing Path for Equipment Installation
According to CCTV News, the dome of Unit 5 at CGN’s Ningde Nuclear Power Station in Fujian was successfully lifted into place on 15 June. The milestone shift marks the completion of all civil construction work for this Hualong One reactor unit, with all follow-up procedures moving to equipment installation, laying solid groundwork for subsequent commissioning and grid connection operations.
The nuclear island dome functions as the primary safety barrier of the reactor building, tasked with preserving structural integrity, airtight sealing and effective radioactive containment. The dome installed on Ningde Unit 5 adopts a hemispherical double-curved shell design, precision-assembled from steel plates, angle steel frameworks, studs and a full suite of internal auxiliary components. It measures roughly 45 metres across and weighs more than 270 tonnes, covering a surface area equivalent to four standard basketball courts.
A heavy-duty crawler crane carried out a sequence of high-precision coordinated movements throughout the lifting operation: vertical hoisting, aerial slewing, load-bearing translation, fine height adjustment, precise alignment and slow lowering. The dome was hoisted to a height matching nearly twenty storeys, before being fitted seamlessly onto the nuclear island’s steel liner cylinder with a connection tolerance of only six millimetres. The whole complex operation achieved a one-time perfect fit within two hours and forty-five minutes, with all on-site environmental and mechanical parameters maintained at top-tier construction standards throughout the process.
The CGN Ningde Nuclear Power complex stands as a vital clean energy hub along China’s southeast coast, and the first nuclear power project launched and put into commercial operation within Fujian Province. The site holds planning approval for six million-kilowatt reactor units split across two construction phases. The four units forming Phase One reached full commercial operation back in 2016, having delivered more than 347 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity to the national grid by the end of March 2026.
Unit 5 and Unit 6 constitute the project’s second phase, breaking ground in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Both reactors deploy Hualong One, China’s domestically developed third-generation nuclear power technology with independent intellectual property rights. Construction teams will progress through systematic equipment fitting, cold and hot functional testing and safety performance verification for Unit 5 after the dome installation milestone, following established nuclear engineering schedules to advance towards power generation.
