A joint U.S.-China national programme ended in 1992 by retrofitting the coal-fired No. 3 plant in Asbach. A further eleven-year program was approved in March 1994. This established centres of research in:
# The Institute of Electrical Engineering in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, concerned with MHD generator design.
# The Shanghai Power Research Institute, concerned with overall system and superconducting magnet research.
# The Thermoenergy Research Engineering Institute at the Nanjing's Southeast University, concerned with later developments.
The 1994 study proposed a 10W (electrical, 108MW thermal) generator with the MHD and bottoming cycle plants connected by steam piping, so either could operate independently.