CAEA plans to build 9 nuclear plants in two years
In a news release the day before yesterday, the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) said that at least nine nuclear power plants will be established over the next two years.
In response to the publication of the release, CAEA official Song Gongbao dais, with the four NPP projects currently under construction, the scale of building nuclear power plants in China is “large and unprecedented.”
He said, “It shows China’s focus is clearly on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving sustainable development.”
The country’s aim of having 40 million kilowatts of installed nuclear capacity by 2020, which will take up 4 percent of the total generating capacity, will be achieved with the help of the new plants.
The CAEA release said, China’s existing 11 nuclear plants have a combined installed capacity of 9.1 million kilowatts, or about 1.3 percent of the total.
According to the Xinhua News Agency’s report, coal-based power, a major source of carbon dioxide emissions, contributes about 84 percent of the supply, in comparison.
Song said, “China needs to add 30 million to 50 million kilowatts of installed capacity over the next 15 years, and this means the speed of construction of nuclear plants has to be five times that of the past two decades.”
He did not say how much the plants would cost, but stressed that the cost will be worthwhile as they will “contribute to China’s sustainable development”.
The CAEA also said the AP1000 technologies imported from American firm Westinghouse will be used by six of the nine new plants.
AP1000 is third-generation technology and much more efficient and safer than its predecessors, Song said.
Homegrown second-generation technologies are used by the three other projects and the four currently under construction.
At the end of this year or early next year, the construction of the six plants in coastal provinces – two in Guangdong, two in Zhejiang, and one each in Fujian and Shangdong – will start.
The release said that the exact locations and construction start dates for the three projects in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces are still in discussion.
Song said the plants in land are necessary to offer a buffer against bad weather conditions like this year’s snowstorms which led to havoc with power supplies.
“Inland provinces rely on the long-distance transmission of electricity from coastal areas and local coal-fired power plants, so when the blizzard struck, the electricity supply network and coal transportation were both paralyzed.”
He also pointed out that the new nuclear plants would be effective to solve that problem.
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