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Guangdong plans biggest nuclear power plant
(China Business Weekly)
Updated: 2004-04-04 09:55
Officials in South China's Guangdong Province are speeding up preparations
for the construction of the country's biggest nuclear power plant.
The facility will be located in Yangjiang, one of the province's coastal
cities.
Construction of the facility's nuclear reactor will begin before 2006, said
Qian Zhimin, general manager of Guangdong Nuclear Power Co Ltd.
Infrastructure construction at the site, in Shahuai Township in Yangjiang's
Yangdong County, is under way, Qian said on Tuesday.
Foreign companies from the United States, Japan, Russia, Canada and France
are competing against domestic firms to design the project, Qian said.
Yangjiang's nuclear power plant is expected to help stem the chronic power
shortages along the nation's prosperous Pearl River Delta, which includes the
Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, Qian added.
Guangdong Province's demand for electricity has exceeded supply for several
years.
That has forced the province to purchase electricity from Hong Kong. This
year, the gap between supply and demand is expected to reach 10 per cent.
Qian said Yangjiang Nuclear Power Co Ltd was formed, by his firm, to
construct and operate the nuclear facility.
Hu Wenquan was appointed general manager of Yangjiang Nuclear Power Co Ltd
late last year.
The nuclear plant, located in western Guangdong, will have six electricity
generating units.
Each will have a production capacity of 1 million kilowatts.
The first two units will begin generating power by 2010. The remaining units
will be operational within 15 to 20 years.
The plant will be capable of generating more than 45 billion kilowatt hours
of electricity annually when all six units are operational.
The plant, which will cover 472,485 square metres, will cost more than US$8
billion to construct.
Guangdong Nuclear Power plans to begin constructing another nuclear power
plant in 2006.
It will be located in Shenzhen's Daya Bay and it will support the Pearl River
Delta area's rapid economic growth.
The Lingdong Nuclear Power Plant, also referred to as the second phase of the
Ling'ao Nuclear Power Plant, will have two generating units. Each has an
installed capacity of 1 million kilowatts.
When the two nuclear plants are operational, Guangdong will have a nuclear
power production capacity, or installed capacity, of more than 12 million
kilowatts.
Nuclear power plants will produce more than 20 per cent of the electricity
generated in the province.
Qian said his company is considering building another nuclear power plant.
Construction could begin in 2010.
Initial plans for the Yaogu Nuclear Power Plant in Taishan, another coastal
city in western Guangdong, call for three units, each with an installed capacity
of 1 million kilowatts.
Qian, however, refused to provide further details about the proposed plant.
Yangjiang's plant is very important to Guangdong's economic growth,
especially to the economic development of the Pearl River Delta's western
region, Qian said.
The plant will also reinforce Guangdong's status as China's largest nuclear
power production base.
China has another major nuclear power production base in Qinshan, a city in
East China's Zhejiang Province.
Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant, China's first nuclear power plant, began
operations in 1991.
China by 2020 will have nuclear power capacity in excess of 36 million
kilowatts.
Elsewhere, Sanmen, in Zhejiang Province, and Lianyungang, in Jiangsu
Province, plan to begin constructing nuclear power plants within two years.
Guangdong at present has two nuclear plants in operation - Daya Bay and
Ling'ao. The plants combined have four units. Each has a production capacity of
1 million kilowatts.
The two plants, situated in the eastern region of the Pearl River Delta,
began operations in 1994 and 1995, respectively.
Most of the equipment and technologies at the Daya Bay and Ling'ao plants,
including the reactors, were imported from France, which is one of the world's
leading nuclear power producers.
The US$4 billion Daya Bay plant is one of the largest Sino-foreign joint
ventures in the Chinese mainland.
Guangdong Province holds 75 per cent of the Daya Bay plant while its partner,
Hong Kong Nuclear Power Investment Corp Ltd, holds the remaining 25 per
cent.
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