China starts building first northern nuclear plant

Beijing, Aug 20: China has started constructing a nuclear power plant in the north of the country, as part of efforts to boost clean energy and reduce reliance on coal.

The Hongyanhe nuclear power station in Dalian in coastal Liaoning province, is the first in the north and will initially have four generating units with capacities of 1 gigawatt (GW) each, said China Power Investment Corporation, an investor in the project and one of China's five power generating groups.

The first unit is scheduled to be in commercial operation in 2012 and the rest will be ready for use by 2014, China Power Investment said in an announcement on its Web site (www.zdt.com.cn).

Total investment is estimated to be around 50 billion yuan (6.58 billion dollar), with China Power Investment's nuclear unit and China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group each contributing 45 percent.

A local company, Dalian Municipal Construction Investment Company, would fund the rest, the announcement said.

Guangdong Nuclear Power Group, operator of two nuclear power plants in Guangdong, said it would supply CPR1000 pressurised water reactor technology to the new plant.

When fully operational in 2014, the plant was expected to generate 30 billion kilowatt hours of power a year, or one-tenth of the total in northeast China, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Facing worsening pollution caused largely by burning coal, China has set detailed goals to cut coal usage and increase the use of clean energy including natural gas, nuclear power, hydropower and other renewable energies.

The country plans to raise nuclear power generating capacity to 40 GW by 2020, increasing the share of output from nuclear plants to 4 per cent of China's total from around 2 percent now.

The Tianwan nuclear power plant in eastern China, the largest cooperative project between China and Russia, with generating capacity of 2.12 GW, started full commercial operations last week.

China, the world's second-largest power consumer after the United States, used more than 590.78 million tonnes of raw coal to generate power in the first half of this year, up nearly 18 percent from a year earlier, Xinhua quoted the China Electricity Council, as saying.

Coal fuels some 70 per cent of China's energy needs.

REUTERS>