China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced on Thursday that the world’s first Linglong One — the first commercial land-based small modular reactor (SMR) — has successfully completed its cold performance test, marking a major milestone toward its fuel loading and future commercial operation.
Located in Changjiang, South China’s Hainan Province, Linglong One is the world’s first land-based commercial modular SMR to pass a safety review by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The cold performance test serves as the first comprehensive “health check” of the entire reactor system, assessing its integrity, reliability, and safety before proceeding to the next phases of testing.
According to CNNC, the successful completion of this phase lays a solid foundation for subsequent hot functional tests and criticality testing. Once operational, Linglong One is expected to generate approximately 1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually — enough to meet the power needs of about 526,000 households in Hainan — while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by around 880,000 tons per year, equivalent to planting 7.5 million trees.
The project marks a significant step forward in China’s development of modular nuclear power technology and its broader goals of achieving clean, low-carbon energy transformation.
