China’s Fourth AP1000 Nuclear Reactor is Operational and China Has 45 GW of Nuclear Power

China now has 46 power reactors in operation with a combined installed capacity of more than 45 GWe.

China will add another 11 nuclear reactors that would add 11 GWe of electricity over the next two years.

Afterwards, there is a gap in China’s development of nuclear power. Only two nuclear reactors are scheduled to come online from 2021 to 2024.

China currently has the third most nuclear power of any country. They are behind the USA which has about 100 GWe and 800 TWh of nuclear power and France which has about 62 GWe and 382 TWh of nuclear power.

Based upon China’s operation of nuclear reactors they will generate about 6.75 TWh per GWe of nuclear plant. This means about 303 TWh from 45 GWe. This same amount of per GWe of nuclear plant would mean 378 TWh from 56 GWe of nuclear power.

France is only producing about 6.2 TWh per GWe of nuclear plant. France has limitations on operating nuclear power at maximum levels because they have 71% of their electricity from nuclear power. This puts more limitations on how flexible they are in operating their nuclear reactors.

The US is producing 8 TWh of power per GWe. The limit for a plant that was operating at maximum capacity for an entire year is 8.76 TWh per GWe. China has been improving the operational performance of their nuclear power.

China is still on track to have the second most power generated from nuclear power.