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DPS: Could you explain Hamon’s history in the nuclear market in China? Jean-Christian Martin: The Chinese nuclear market was
only composed of nuclear power plants located by the sea until the year 2007-2008. So there was no need for cooling towers. Then, the Chinese government changed and decided to launch an extensive program of nuclear power plants on river banks, so there is a market for cooling towers because you cannot directly discharge water into rivers. The rejected hot water temperature is too high and this would break the ecological balance. But the problem is nuclear power plants require very large cooling towers due to the large volume of water to be cooled. Chinese end users were wondering if they should build a much larger tower than what is usually built for thermal plants or if they should instead build two towers for one reactor unit. We have been in contact with Shandong Electric Power Engineering Consulting Institute (SDEPCI for short) they wanted to know which solutions Hamon could bring to this problem regarding to the dimensions of the towers. Our first contact with them led us to secure a contract to design the “Super Large” Natural Draft Cooling Tower of the Jiangxi Pengze Nuclear Power Plant. This was a means for us to promote technology developed by Hamon in France several years ago. This technology allows the towers to save a lot of pumping cost and energy. In the meantime, SNPTC was created, and part of SDPECI became SNPDRI (State Nuclear Electric Power Design & Research Institute). SNPDRI was interested in this technology and we signed an agreement with them to study the complete engineering of a tower for the AP1000 Nuclear Power Plant of Pengze. This Natural Draft Cooling Tower will be the largest cooling tower that has ever been built, 210 meters high with a base diameter of 170 meters. This was our first project in China. Our second major project was concluded with CGNPC for the Xianning Nuclear Power Plant. We had finalized a contract with them differently because we signed a cooperation agreement. We performed in collaboration with CGNPC for the complete design of the cooling towers for Xianning units 1 &2. Later we will supply and install the internal components of those towers.
Interview of the Month
Recently we have signed a cooperation agreement with CNPE (China Nuclear Power Engineering) belonging to CNNC. This agreement will open the door for an international cooperation with CNNC on super large cooling towers for nuclear projects inside but also outside of China. Hamon has a factory in China manufacturing the internal components of the wet cooling tower. This factory was established several years ago in Jiaxing, near Shanghai. So we can say that for cooling equipment, Hamon has good production base for the Chinese market. Hamon has also developed in China air-cooled steam condensers and indirect cooling. We opened a factory in Tianjin to manufacture the internal components of this kind of equipment at the end of 2010. This is a key step for the development of Hamon in China because there is a significant market for this type of equipment in areas where water is not available in a very large quantity. The wet cooling tower consumes some water, so when you have a limited quantity of water, you don’t want to lose any. The air-cooled steam condenser or the indirect cooling technologies allows cooling the water without any loss. That’s why we call it “dry”.
DPS: What were the main obstacles or technical challenges you have encountered in China? Jean-Christian Martin:
When Hamon first came to China, we had to understand the market and make ourselves known. Hamon became a member of an association named Partenariat France Chine Electricité (P.F.C.E.), in English France-China Electricity Partnership. This association aims to promote sustainable involvement of French SMEs / SMIs in the realization of China’s nuclear program. All its members are qualified providers of Electricité de France (EDF). We could benefit among other channels, of the help of this network. Then, our strategy was to try to find one competitive advantage to see what technology Hamon could propose to China which would differentiate us from others. We have promoted the water collecting device for the cooling tower. This system allows
Hamon Factory in China