World's First Nuclear Power Integration into Ultra-High Voltage Project Commissioned, Yantai-Weihai 1000 kV Project Opens Up the "Main Artery" for Nuclear Power Transmission from Jiaodong

On October 10, 2026, the Yantai-Weihai 1000 kV UHV project was officially completed and put into operation. This project is not only the first newly built UHV AC project commissioned during the national "15th Five-Year Plan" period, but also the world's first benchmark project to achieve direct integration of nuclear power into a UHV AC grid, marking the full completion of the ultra-large-scale baseload transmission corridor for the Jiaodong Peninsula nuclear power base.

As the core cluster of Shandong's nuclear power development, the coastal areas of the Jiaodong Peninsula, including Yantai and Weihai, host the vast majority of Shandong's nuclear power units. With the advancement of major nuclear energy projects such as Haiyang Nuclear Power, the Yantai-Weihai region has rapidly transformed from a traditional "power receiving end" into a province-level strategic "power sending end for nuclear energy and new energy." It is expected that by the end of the "15th Five-Year Plan," the maximum surplus power transmission demand in the region will exceed 30 million kilowatts. The commissioning of the Yantai-Weihai UHV project has completely broken the previous grid bottleneck for power transmission from large-scale nuclear power bases, establishing a backbone power transmission corridor for efficiently delivering large-capacity nuclear power to load centers in the central and western regions.

In terms of engineering design and grid connection nodes, the newly built Haiyang West 1000 kV switching station of this project has set multiple national records. As a key hub for collecting power from Haiyang Nuclear Power and surrounding clean energy, the Haiyang West switching station adopts a "two stations at one site" layout, features the nation's longest 1000 kV gas-insulated switchgear (GIS), and is planned with as many as 12 1000 kV outgoing lines, making it the UHV station with the largest 1000 kV outgoing line scale in China. The station also fully deploys China's first batch of independently developed low-noise UHV shunt reactors, ensuring silent operation and stable power quality within the station under large-capacity nuclear power grid integration.

From the perspective of grid network structure, the project's total single-circuit equivalent length is 1,197 kilometers, passing through 5 cities including Yantai, Qingdao, Rizhao, Weifang, and Linyi, with 3 UHV substations newly built and expanded. Its grid connection enables closed-loop interconnection between this line and Shandong's existing UHV network, forming the nation's first provincial-level "8"-shaped UHV double-ring network. This robust architecture of mutual backup and multi-channel support between the double-ring networks greatly enhances the grid's ability to resist disturbances and withstand system faults, fundamentally providing solid grid security redundancy for the grid-connected operation of large-scale nuclear power units with high safety requirements.

At the construction implementation level, the project's effective construction period was only 12 months, setting the fastest record for UHV AC projects of equivalent scale nationwide. The construction team overcame the highly difficult "crossing mountains and seas" construction of 822 towers in mountainous and hilly terrain and 17 towers in sea areas, developed five core construction method systems covering marine anti-corrosion and complex geology, and fully implemented "staggered construction for migratory bird protection" and "zero mud" marine environmental protection standards, creating a green and low-carbon construction model for nuclear power UHV corridors.