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March 13, 2014

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Home » Business » Energy

China to beat 2020 targets for nuke power

Source: Agencies | March 13, 2014, Thursday | Print Edition

CHINA is set to beat its 2020 targets for nuclear power, the chairman of the country’s top nuclear firm said, after getting back on track with projects that had been halted after Japan’s Fukushima disaster.

China is undertaking the world’s biggest expansion of civilian nuclear power as the government aims to increase its use of cleaner energy. At the same time, China is seeking to expand its power grid by as much as 80 percent over this decade.

The expansion plans were suspended in 2011 following the earthquake and nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan, but are now back on track as construction on new plants is expected to resume with approvals granted in the coming months.

“Nuclear plants will play an important role in reaching the government’s 2020 goal of raising the proportion of energy produced by non-fossil fuel to 15 percent,” Sun Qin, chairman of China National Nuclear Corp, said on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress.

China will surpass its goal of having 58 gigawatts of installed nuclear power capacity by the end of the decade, said Sun, adding that the country may build 20 or more nuclear reactors in the next six years.

In 2013, non-fossil fuel took up nearly 10 percent of China’s primary energy use.

CNNC, which has listed its uranium resources arm CNNC International Ltd in Hong Kong, is also preparing to raise as much as US$3 billion for its expansion plans through an initial public offering in Shanghai, as other media has reported.

“The amount of money raised will depend on market conditions,” said Sun. “I hope it can be done this year.”

Premier Li Keqiang said last week that China will start construction of a number of hydropower and nuclear power projects in his first government work report delivered to the annual meeting of the NPC.

China now gets below 2 percent of its electricity from 17 nuclear reactors.

Thirty-one additional units are under construction, including a pair of AP1000 reactors located at Sanmen in Zhejiang Province. CNNC is building the two reactors there with US-based Westinghouse, and they may be operational by next year.

 

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