"The strategy of nuclear power industry in China has been altered to vigorous development from the previous moderate pace. The installed capacity of nuclear power on Chinese mainland is expected to reach 40 million kilowatts by 2020. With a total investment of 400 billion yuan, the overall power of ten power units under construction and nuclear power plants to be built top 9.3 million kilowatts and 24 million kilowatts respectively," said Kang Rixin, general manager of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) on June 6.

The nuclear power industry started from the 1980s, and after more than 20 years' development, the installed capacity has reached 6.7 million kilowatts. The power generation of ten units under construction now is about 9.3 million kilowatts, 2.3 percent of the nation's total. Particularly, the nuclear power will take up 13 percent in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces, close to the world level of 16 percent.

Kang further noted that Chinese government plans to enlarge the installed capacity of nuclear power to 40 million kilowatts by 2020, taking up four percent of the nation's total, which requires China to build 30 more million-kilowatt nuclear power units. Meanwhile, he put forward the principle of combining one's own capacity with foreign cooperation: first, making full use of the existing base in Qianshan Nuclear Power Station to expand two 600,000-kilowatt units; secondly, introducing the third-generation nuclear technology through international bidding and building two million-kilowatt nuclear power units in Sanmen in Zhejiang Province and Yangjiang in Guangdong Province respectively. Now the evaluation process on the above-mentioned projects is well underway.

Furthermore, the initial layout of CNP 1000, a China's self-designed million-kilowatt PWR (pressurized water reactor) nuclear power plant, has been completed and passed the appraisal by experts.

CNP 1000, with a designed lifetime of 60 years, can help bring the per-kilowatt investment down to 1,300 US dollars and the per-kilowatt hour electricity price to five US cents.

Plus, the initial design of a 1.5-million-kilowatt nuclear power station will be completed soon.

By People's Daily Online