Bidding Open in China for First Batch of 20 Plus Nuclear Power Plants Before 2020

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources Incorporated; Houston, Texas). The Chinese government has a long-term blueprint to raise the country's nuclear power generating capacity by a factor of four times the current level by 2020. This represents a target capacity of something between 32,000 and 40,000 megawatts (MW) and would lift the contribution of nuclear power to the national total from the present 1.3% to between 4 and 5%.

With an estimated total installed capacity of around 800,000 MW by 2020 the State Development and Reform Commission says China will need to construct more than 20 new nuclear plants to assist in reaching that goal. Including the latest plant at Qishan, China has a total of four nuclear units with a combined capacity of 8,700 MW.

The IEA reports a U.S. embassy source in Beijing as saying that there are over 300 companies, local and foreign, active and biding for nuclear power business in the country.

"The strained power supply has provided the nuclear power industry with unprecedented opportunities for development," said Kang Rixin, deputy general manger of the China Nuclear Corporation, China's largest constructor of nuclear plants.

Sixteen provinces and autonomous regions in China have suffered frequent blackouts this summer due to surges in consumption. To ease the pressure on power grids, some local governments have urged residents to raise the temperature setting of their air conditioners to save electricity.

Kang added that locally built nuclear power was desirable, as the energy-hungry coastal regions of the country lack coal, oil and gas to feed economic development. The strict environmental policies in these economically booming regions also gives the upper hand to nuclear power, which is clean, reliable and economically feasible.

In August this year, it was announced that China would build its largest 6,000 MW nuclear power plant in Yangjiang (PEC 88000478), in the southern boom province of Guangdong. The local government has set aside a 0.5 square kilometer site for the $8 billion project that will have six generators and is expected to begin production within 15 to 20 years. Yangjiang has favorable geology for a nuclear plant and the sea provides an inexhaustible source of freezing water for the plant. Companies from the U.S., Japan and France are bidding to design the plant.

According to Hu Wenquan, general manger of CGNPG (China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group) the electricity consumption of the province grew by 18.1% for the first seven months of 2003, year-on-year.

The government has now, in October, invited foreign companies to bid for the design and construction of four new nuclear power plants in a total project worth billions of dollars. The four new 1,000 MW nuclear units will be sited in Sanmen, Zhejiang Province, east China and Lingdong, Guangdong, south China.

Two major domestic nuclear power firms, the China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) and the CGNPG are preparing tender documents that they plan to complete by the end of this year, according to CNNC officials.

As international companies including Framatone, Alstom, Electricite de France and Westinghouse compete for the construction and supply contracts the CNNC says that it favors negotiations with selected companies to use as much domestic technology and design as possible in the new generators.

China has imported eight of its eleven existing nuclear power generators from France, Canada and Russia. The first and second phase of the Qinshan plant is the only using Chinese built generators. The third phase of Qinshan has China's first heavy water reactor using Canadian Candu technology from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL, Mississauga, Ontario). The plant has two 700 MW generators and has come online nearly four months early with a $300 million saving accounting for more than 10% of the original $2.89 billion budget. It represents the largest Sino-Canadian cooperation project to date and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien attended an on site completion ceremony in late October. The complete plant has an installed capacity of 2,900 MW.

The Peoples Daily reports Kang as saying that the government hopes to start construction on the four newly announced plants before 2005 and have them in operation by the end of 2010.

To ensure the competitive performance of the plants the government requires that investment be limited to no more than $1,500 per kW, compared to the $2,000 per kW at Dayawan, China's first foreign funded nuclear plant. Government also expects the new generators to be able to compete with local coal-fired power to sell electricity.

Nuclear plants in China are currently under government protection and free from competition. The price charged for nuclear power is much higher than that for energy produced by coal-fired plants because the government is assisting the nuclear plants recoup the huge investments made in them.