Gao Ligang attended the 2024 WANO Biennial Meeting and received the Nuclear Excellence Award

Recently, the 17th Biennial Meeting of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) was held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. More than 400 senior managers and young key professionals from the nuclear power industry in 35 countries and regions attended the meeting. Gao Ligang, the General Manager of China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), and Qin Yuxin, the Vice President of CGN Power Co., Ltd., as well as representatives from CGN’s nuclear power plants participated in the meeting.

The theme of this Biennial Meeting is "Fusing Futures: Sustainable Performance in the Tech and Net Zero Era." The year 2024 celebrates the 35th anniversary of WANO's founding. The meeting focused on cultivating a culture of ongoing improvement, fostering technological innovation, developing talent, and WANO's backing of new reactor technologies and performance enhancements in nuclear power. Best practices and ideas are shared on these subjects.

    The meeting reviewed the progress and challenges encountered since the 2019 WANO Biennial Meeting in the Global Excellence Performance Action Plan (Action for Excellence, AfE). It emphasized that solidifying fundamental skills in specialized areas and overcoming complacency are key elements for performance improvement. The meeting called on the nuclear power industry to demonstrate team spirit, strengthen the sharing of knowledge and experience, support each other, adhere to the highest performance standards, maintain an open learning attitude, effectively exert nuclear leadership, and work together to achieve the AfE goals by 2030. The meeting announced the list of nuclear power plants that had achieved the AfE goals by 2024, which included six CGN nuclear power plants: Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, Ling Ao Nuclear Power Plant, Ningde Nuclear Power Plant, Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant, Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Plant, and Taishan Nuclear Power Plant.

At the conference, Gao Ligang was among the five global nuclear power industry leaders being presented the "WANO Nuclear Excellence Award" in recognition of their outstanding contributions to improving nuclear safety performance. Additionally, WANO issued the "Rising Star Award" for the first time to recognize and encourage outstanding achievements among the younger generation in the nuclear industry. Pan Feng, Deputy Chief Engineer for Maintenance at Fujian Ningde Nuclear Power Co., Ltd., received this award.

During the Biennial Meeting, Gao Ligang met with WANO Chairman Tom Mitchell, Chairman-Elect Jose Gago, WANO CEO Naoki Chigusa, and Satu Katajala, Director of the WANO Paris Centre. He also engaged in discussions with representatives from Électricité de France (EDF), EDF Energy, the Finnish utility company TVO, and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) among others. CGN had an exchange meeting with the EDF team, and both parties signed a "Leadership Cross Immersion Program" agreement for nuclear power operation. Qin Yuxin, on behalf of CGN, attended the WANO Paris Centre Board Meeting, WANO Shanghai Support Center Executive Committee, and WANO CNO Forum among other meetings.