Abstract: In pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power station, it is still a challenge to achieve a well-performed core power control system. A model predictive control (MPC) method was applied to the automatic control of the core power in PWR. Models for the automatic control of the core power were established based on the core model and MPC model. The core model included neutron dynamic models, thermal hydraulic models and reactivity models, and the MPC model was presented in state space model form. To evaluate the performance of the proposed MPC control system based on state space, simulations were designed for core power control. The simulation results show that the proposed control method can achieve a swift and accurate core power control performance in the load tracking.