The cooling tower now has a height of 218.7 metres and a diameter at its base of about 175 metres. "The successful completion of the cooling tower has accumulated valuable experience for the design and construction of ultra-large seawater cooling towers in China's nuclear power field," SPIC said. The company noted that, unlike the 'once-through cooling' model commonly used in traditional nuclear power plants, the 'secondary circulation cooling technology' used in the cooling tower of Lianjiang 1 represents "a new technological breakthrough". The first phase of the Lianjiang nuclear power plant project - the first coastal nuclear power project developed and constructed by SPIC in Guangdong - will comprise two CAP1000 units. It is the first nuclear power plant in China to adopt seawater secondary circulation cooling technology, and is the first to develop and use a super-large cooling tower.