When you look at Unit 1 of the famous Shin Hanul power plant, you will soon see that it has now been connected to the grid for the first time. If you work in nuclear & defence, renewables, engineering or even tech, then you will soon see that the unit is going to enter its year of commercial operation very soon, and this is going to be ground-breaking to say the least. The pressurised water reactors are 1350 and they were originally due to enter the service in 2017 and then 2018. That being said, there have been a lot of delays. The delays pushed the units back to 2019, but then this was postponed due to safety checks. Some modifications then had to be made. Commercial operations were then said to be carried out but further delays hit.

In July 2021, the NSSC then gave their approval for the Shin Hanul power plant. The first of the fuel assemblies then got loaded into the core within the first 5 days. KHNP have since announced that following the fuel loading, they were then conducting some reactor physics and that system testing was being carried out under normal temperatures. Pressure conditions were also normal. The company have said that the tests were going to take a total of 8 months to complete but the reactor managed to achieve a sustained chain reaction with ease on the 22nd of May.

KHNP have said that they expect Shin Hanul to generate a total of 700,000 kWh of electricity every hour. This is going to be to try and increase the output and it is also going to be connected to the grid as well. This is going to help to keep up with the increased demand in summer.