The construction of the units involved three separate phases. ;Phase I: Phase I has an annual power generation capacity of 1.7 billion kWh. It involved construction of the small-scale (≈300 MW) Unit-1 only, but was the first domestically designed and constructed nuclear power plant in the nation (95 percent of components came from domestic manufactures). Its preliminary design was completed in October 1983. The first concrete was poured on May 20, 1985, marking the start of full-scale construction. The unit connected to the grid at 00:15 on December 15, 1991. After two years of testing, it reached its designed capacity in December 1993. It entered commercial operation in April 1994 and passed completion acceptance in July 1995. ;Phase II: The next set of reactors were mid-scale plants (≈600 MW) but still of Chinese design (
CNP-600). The
steam generators were made by
Babcock & Wilcox of Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Units 1 and 2 of this phase started construction on June 2, 1996 and March 23, 1997, respectively. They were put into commercial operation on April 15, 2002 and May 3, 2004, respectively. Units 3 and 4 started construction on April 28, 2006 and entered operation in 2010 and 2011 respectively. ;Phase III: Involved construction of two 728 MW (gross) CANDU-6 series of the
CANDU reactor design supplied by
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. This was reported to be the largest business venture between Canada and China to that time. In 2001, it was visited by the Canadian Prime Minister
Jean Chrétien; both units were online by 2003. ==Reactor data==