Back on Track
The construction of the Shin Hanul 3 and 4 reactors will begin soon after its cancellation under the previous Moon Jae-in administration.
The Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy held a meeting at the Sejong Government Office on June 12 to deliberate on and resolve the approval of an implementation plan for the Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4 Project. Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4 are two 1.4-gigawatt (GW) APR1400 units to be built in county of Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province. The total construction cost is 11.6804 trillion won (US$9.18335 billion) and the project is scheduled to run until October 2033. The Korean government hoped that the construction of the two nuclear reactors, a symbol of the Yoon administration’s abolition of the nuclear phase-out policy, will rev up the nation’s nuclear industry ecosystems again.
Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4, which had been promoted and approved for power generation in 2002 during the period of the Kim Dae-jung administration, were canceled in 2017 during the Moon Jae-in administration due to its nuclear phase-out policy, but the construction project was revived under the current administration. This time, the Yoon administration reduced the time for an implementation plan for Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4 to 11 months. This is a 19-month reduction compared to an average 30 months for the previous three nuclear power plant construction projects (Saeul 3 and 4, Shin Hanul 1 and 2 and Saeul 1 and 2).
Under the current Tenth Basic Electricity Supply Plan, Shin Hanul 3 and 4 are scheduled to be completed in 2032 and 2033, respectively. With a capacity of 1.4 GW per unit, Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4 will produce 20,848 GWh of electricity annually at an 80 percent utilization rate. This is enough electricity for about 4.92 million households based on a household of four people (annual electricity consumption of about 3,984 kWh).
However, the timing of the construction of Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4 depends on how long it takes to obtain construction approval from the Korean Nuclear Safety Commission. Relevant ministries, including the commission, are reportedly discussing the approval process after setting the time of the application for approval for the two nuclear reactors at July 2022.