Following the operational start-up of 11 nuclear plants in the southern and eastern regions of China, next year in Liaoning Province in the northeast, and in Shandong Province in the east, development will commence on two additional nuclear power facilities, each housing two reactors.

Development of the Liaoning plant, consisting of two 1,080-MW (megawatt) reactors, is projected to cost US$2.8 billion. It will be the first nuclear base in northeast China, located at Hongyanhe, the coastal city of Dalian, explained a senior official with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG).

"We expect to get the final go-ahead (to build the Dalian plant) from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) by the end of this year," said the official, who preferred to go unnamed.

Last week CGNPG sources indicated that infrastructure construction and design at the Dalian project should commence within the month, and the plant should go online generating electricity in 2011.

According to the investment agreement for the new project in Dalian, CGNPG and China Power Investment Corp (CPI) will each control a 45 percent stake. The remaining 10 percent will be equally divided between local companies, Liaoning Energy Investment Group, and Dalian Construction Investment Co.

For the nuclear power facility in Haiyang, Shandong Province, CPI has reached an initial agreement to jointly develop that plant with the country's largest nuclear plant constructor, China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC).

The Haiyang plant, housing two 1,000-MW reactors, will process at the same pace as the Dalian plant, CPI director Liu Changqing told China Daily yesterday.

"We have submitted the feasibility study to the NDRC," Liu said.

The Chinese Government has included both projects at Dalian and Haiyang in the country's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2011), a CNNC spokesman said last week.

The Dalian plant will cost less than the previous reactors, since CGNPG will use China's own nuclear technology, CPR 1000, in designing the new reactors. This plan is based on technology adopted in the second phase of the Ling'ao nuclear project in south China's Guangdong Province.

The new reactors at the Dalian plant are projected to operate at a production cost of US$1,300 per kilowatt, compared with the US$1,500 per kilowatt for the Ling'ao phase II, which launched construction earlier this month and contains two 1,000-MW reactors.

"We will be very competitive in the sale prices due to the lower costs," the CGNPG said.

Coal-fired plants, which installed desulphurization facilities, sell their electricity to grid companies at 0.347 yuan (4.28 US cents) per kilowatt-hour in Dalian, according to the CGNPG official.

In working to cut the sulphur pollutants produced by the burning of coal -- which fuels more than 70 percent of the country's electricity generators -- the government ordered the installation of desulphurization equipment in China's coal-fired plants.

"We can make a profit at the same price with these coal-fired plants," the company official said.

Equipment manufacturing and procurement for the new Dalian plant will be open for bid among domestic suppliers, with a small proportion expected to come from foreign companies, the CGNPG official said.

"Domestic suppliers will produce 80 percent of the equipment including the generation turbines designed for the new plant," he said.

CPI sources earlier said that as many as 10 reactors would be built at the two coastal places in Liaoning and Shandong, with six built at Dalian and four at Haiyang.

Currently, only CNNC and CGNPG are authorized to build nuclear plants in China. Other power companies, including CPI, will only be allowed a stake in the nuclear plant if they intend to participate in the nuclear sector.

Foreseeing great potential for nuclear energy, CGNPG, based in Guangdong, is also planning two more nuclear plants at two locations in the province, Taishan and Lufeng.

"Another in the neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is also under study," the CGNPG official said.

(China Daily December 27, 2005)