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Additive Manufacturing: A New-Generation Productivity Driver for High-Quality Energy Equipment

September 23, 2025 Services 3DPTech 164

Additive Manufacturing: The "New Quality Productive Forces" Driving High-Quality Development of Energy Equipment—An Interpretation of China's "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Energy Equipment"

Additive Manufacturing: Driving High-Quality Development of Energy Equipment as a "New Quality Productive Force" – An Interpretation of the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Energy Equipment"

Recently, the National Energy Administration and other departments jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Energy Equipment" (NEA Tech [2025] No. 78), explicitly proposing to use technological innovation as the fundamental driving force to advance the high-end, intelligent, and green development of energy equipment and accelerate the formation of new quality productive forces. Among these, additive manufacturing (i.e., 3D printing), as a core technology of intelligent manufacturing, is listed as a key focus in the nuclear energy equipment section of the Opinions, highlighting its strategic value in the transformation of energy equipment.

I. Additive Manufacturing: A Key Path to Solving "High-Precision" Challenges in Energy Equipment
Energy equipment commonly faces extreme operational challenges, such as strong radiation fields and high temperature/pressure environments in nuclear power plants, corrosion resistance requirements for deep-sea oil and gas equipment, and the integrated manufacturing of complex structures for large-scale units. Traditional manufacturing processes have limitations in material utilization, design freedom, and iteration speed. Additive manufacturing, by building materials layer by layer, enables the integrated forming of complex components, significantly shortens R&D cycles, reduces material waste, and breaks through design constraints. For example, the Opinions specifically mention in the "Nuclear Energy Equipment" section to "conduct R&D and verification of new equipment, new processes, and new materials for advanced nuclear power technologies like small reactors and Generation IV reactors, and tackle advanced manufacturing technologies such as automatic welding, additive manufacturing, and intelligent manufacturing." This aims to enhance the long-term service performance of equipment under coupled environments like strong radiation and high temperatures. This not only helps overcome "bottleneck" issues with key components but also provides process support for advanced nuclear power technologies like small modular reactors and Generation IV reactors.

II. From "Manufacturing" to "Intelligent Manufacturing": Empowering Upgrades Across the Entire Industry Chain
The Opinions emphasize digital and intelligent upgrades as the main thread, building a closed-loop system of "perception-planning-decision-execution." The deep integration of additive manufacturing with technologies like digital twins and artificial intelligence can drive transformative lifecycle management of energy equipment. In the R&D phase, rapid prototyping via additive manufacturing accelerates innovation in new materials and structures. In the production phase, it enables distributed, customized production, reducing supply chain risks. In the operation and maintenance phase, additive technology can be used for remanufacturing and repairing retired components, extending equipment lifespan. For instance, key components like gas turbine blades and photovoltaic brackets can be lightweighted and performance-optimized through additive manufacturing, aligning with the requirements for "green design, green manufacturing, and circular utilization" outlined in the Opinions.

III. Policy Coordination and Industrial Ecosystem Building
The Opinions propose multiple support measures in "Optimizing the Industrial Innovation Ecological Environment," such as strengthening the main role of enterprises, encouraging the application of first-set-of-its-kind equipment, and establishing high-level standard systems. These provide important guarantees for the industrialization of additive manufacturing technology. On one hand, the green channel mechanism for state-owned enterprises procuring first-set-of-its-kind equipment can lower the application threshold for new additive manufacturing equipment. On the other hand, the path of "technology patenting - patent standardization - standard industrialization" is expected to promote the standardized application of additive manufacturing in the energy sector. Furthermore, with support from ultra-long-term special government bond funds for large-scale equipment updates, additive manufacturing equipment and service-oriented manufacturing models (such as leasing services) will encounter broader market opportunities.

IV. Challenges and Prospects
Although additive manufacturing has broad prospects, it still faces challenges in the large-scale application within the energy equipment sector: First, the stability of printing processes for high-end metal materials (such as high-temperature resistant alloys) needs improvement. Second, there is a lack of specific certification standards for energy equipment using additive manufacturing. Third, balancing cost and efficiency remains an issue. In the future, it is necessary to rely on innovation consortiums, uniting leading enterprises and research institutes to tackle common technological challenges, while simultaneously accelerating the establishment of a standard system for additive manufacturing in energy equipment to promote the transition of the technology from the "laboratory" to "engineering applications."

Additive manufacturing, as a typical representative of new quality productive forces in energy equipment, will profoundly reshape the energy equipment industrial chain through design liberalization, production flexibility, and operational intelligence. With the implementation of the Opinions, additive manufacturing is expected to achieve breakthroughs first in high-end equipment fields such as nuclear power, hydrogen energy, and energy storage, becoming an important engine for ensuring energy security and promoting the green transition.

https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/202509/content_7041785.htm