China powers 526,000 homes with SMR

A small modular reactor is a nuclear plant built in smaller pieces, then assembled on site instead of constructed as one giant block. China’s Linglong One is the best-known example, but it is not operating yet. (iaea.org 1) (iaea.org 2) Linglong One, also called ACP100, is being built at the Changjiang nuclear site in Hainan by China National Nuclear Corporation. CNNC and industry publications describe it as a 125-megawatt electric design aimed at power, heating, steam supply and desalination. (cnnc.com.cn) (neimagazine.com) The “526,000 homes” figure is a planning estimate, not evidence that those homes are already being supplied. CNNC says the unit should produce about 1 billion kilowatt-hours a year once operational, enough for roughly that many households in Hainan. (cnnc.com.cn) (chinadaily.com.cn) As of late April 2026, the project was still moving through installation and testing milestones. CNNC said the first main pump was installed in April 2025, and the reactor passed cold functional testing in October 2025. (cnnc.com.cn) (world-nuclear-news.org) That makes the story less “China is already powering 526,000 homes with an SMR” and more “China is closest to putting a commercial land-based SMR on the grid.” The International Atomic Energy Agency’s reactor database still lists Linglong One as under construction. (iaea.org) (world-nuclear.org) China does already have another advanced reactor in service at Shidao Bay in Shandong. The HTR-PM, a high-temperature gas-cooled pebble-bed design with two reactor modules feeding one 210-megawatt turbine, entered commercial operation on December 6, 2023. (world-nuclear-news.org) (tsinghua.edu.cn) Pebble-bed reactors and pressurized-water SMRs solve different problems. Shidao Bay tests a high-temperature design with helium coolant and graphite fuel spheres, while Linglong One is a smaller pressurized-water unit meant to be replicated more easily at industrial sites and coastal grids. (world-nuclear-news.org) (iaea.org) The timing matters because most Western SMR projects are still in licensing, financing or redesign. China, by contrast, has one advanced modular reactor operating and another small reactor project nearing startup after construction began on July 13, 2021. (world-nuclear.org) (cnnc.com.cn) So the clean version of the claim is narrower than the headline suggests: 526,000 homes is the projected output benchmark for Linglong One, not a completed April 2026 fact. China’s real lead is that it has moved beyond prototypes and into commercial-scale deployment steps. (cnnc.com.cn) (iaea.org)