South China's Guangdong
Province is planning to construct its fourth nuclear power
plant to help ease the power shortage in the nation's prosperous
Pearl River Delta region.
The province is now busy selecting a site from four candidate
places in Huilai County and Lufeng City in its eastern coastal
part.
The electricity shortage in Guangdong Province this year is
expected to exceed 3 million kilowatt hours or more than 10
percent, due to its rapid economic growth.
And the situation would last several years in the future in
Guangdong which lacks sufficient coal, crude oil and other energies
to sustain its economic growth.
Guangdong has to purchase electricity from bordering Hong Kong
and China's southwestern provinces.
A 40-person inspection group consisting of nuclear experts,
designers and government officials have recently reconnoitred the
four places and they will soon decide on the construction site,
according to an executive from Guangdong Nuclear Power Co Ltd.
"All the sites have their advantages," Yu Jiechun, an executive
from Guangdong Nuclear Power Co Ltd, told China Business
Weekly.
In addition to their good geographical location, all the four
sites have enough fresh water supplies and enjoy advanced land and
water transportation facilities, said Yu.
He believed construction of the new nuclear power plant would
begin before 2010, and will contribute to Guangdong's rapid
economic development.
But Yu refused to give more details on the new nuclear power
plant.
Meanwhile, Guangdong is speeding up the preparation work for
construction of the country's biggest nuclear power plant in its
coastal city of Yangjiang.
The nuclear reactor of the Yangjiang plant will officially begin
construction before 2006, said Yu.
The infrastructural facility construction for the project has
already been well under way on the construction site in Shahuai in
Yangdong County.
Located in the western coastal area of Guangdong Province,
Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant will include six generating
units.
Each has an installed production capacity of 1 million
kilowatts.
The first two generating units will be able to start operating
before 2010, while all the six generating units will come on stream
in 15 to 20 years.
The project will be able to annually generate electricity of
more than 45 billion kilowatt hours when all the six generating
units start operation.
Covering an area of 472,485 square meters, construction of the
nuclear power plant is estimated to cost more than US$8
billion.
It is, so far, the largest nuclear power plant on the Chinese
mainland.
Guangdong will have an installed nuclear power production
capacity of more than 12 million kilowatts after the Yangjiang
plant starts full commercial operations.
Guangdong's nuclear electricity will be able to represent more
than 20 percent of the province's total.
Currently fuel power accounts for the lion's share of
Guangdong's electricity industry while nuclear power accounts for
less than 10 percent.
Yu said the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant is of great
significance to Guangdong's economic growth, especially to economic
construction of the western area of the Pearl River Delta
region.
And the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant will also help strengthen
Guangdong's status as China's biggest nuclear power industrial
production base.
By 2012, Guangdong will have an installed production capacity of
nuclear power reaching 8 million kilowatts, becoming the biggest
nuclear production base in China.
Guangdong will be able to generate more than 50 percent of the
country's total nuclear electricity in 2012.
The country's other nuclear power production bases include
Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, both in the eastern coastal
areas.
Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Zhejiang Province, China's first
nuclear power plant, started operations in 1991.
China has planned to have an installed nuclear power production
capacity of more than 36 million kilowatts by 2020.
Now Guangdong already has two nuclear plants in operation. Daya
Bay and Ling'ao nuclear power stations have a total installed
capacity of four generating units, with 1 million kilowatts
each.
The two power plants that are situated in the eastern part of
the Pearl River Delta started commercial operation in 1994 and 1995
respectively.
Most of the equipment and technologies of the Daya Bay and
Ling'ao nuclear power plants, including the nuclear reactors, were
imported from France, one of the world's giants in the nuclear
power industry.
The US$4-billion Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, which has two
900,000-kilowatt generating units, is also one of the largest
Sino-foreign joint ventures on the Chinese mainland.
Guangdong Province holds 75 percent of the stakes while its
partner Hong Kong Nuclear Power Investment Corp Ltd has the
remaining 25 percent.
(China Business Weekly December 12, 2004)