The project won approval from China's National Development and Reform Commission in April 2006, with an initial budget of 23 billion renminbi for the first two units. Construction began that summer with the excavation of two massive pits on the Liaodong Peninsula coast at Donggang Town, Wafangdian, 104 kilometers north of Dalian. The first concrete was poured in August 2007. By February 2013, Hongyanhe Unit 1 achieved criticality and connected to the grid, entering commercial operation on June 6 of that year. The pace did not slacken: Unit 4 reached commercial operation in September 2016, and the final two Phase II reactors followed, completing the six-unit complex in 2022.

Hongyanhe's six reactors represent two generations of Chinese nuclear engineering. Phase I consists of four CPR-1000 reactors, a design China developed from the French Framatome-designed pressurized water reactors at the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong. Phase II introduced two ACPR1000 reactors, a further evolution of the CPR-1000 that incorporates enhanced safety features including a core catcher -- designed to contain molten reactor material in the event of a meltdown -- and double containment structures. The progression from Phase I to Phase II at a single site illustrates how China has used each successive plant as a proving ground for improved designs.

The plant operates as a joint venture split 45-45-10 between three entities: the State Power Investment Corporation (formerly China Power Investment Corporation), the China General Nuclear Power Group, and the Dalian Construction Investment Group. This partnership structure reflects the interplay of national energy strategy and local economic interest that drives China's nuclear program. For Wafangdian and the surrounding region, Hongyanhe means jobs, infrastructure investment, and a reliable power supply for Liaoning's industrial economy. For the national partners, it represents another node in a growing nuclear network that China views as essential to meeting its carbon neutrality targets.

Northeast China -- the old industrial base that once powered the nation's heavy industry -- has struggled with economic transition in recent decades. Hongyanhe's 6,710 MW of clean baseload power is part of the answer to a question that hangs over the region: how to maintain industrial capacity while reducing dependence on the coal-fired plants that have long fueled Liaoning's factories and heated its cities through brutal winters. The plant sits on a coastline where the Bohai Sea provides the cooling water that nuclear generation requires, a geographical advantage that complements the strategic imperative. From the air, the six containment domes lined up along the shore mark one of the most concentrated sites of nuclear generation capacity in Asia.