China Will Surpass France in Nuclear Power Generation This Year

China’s nuclear electricity generation rose by 18.1% last year, to 348 TWh, which is up from 286 TWh in 2018 based on China’s National Energy Administration data. Nuclear’s share of total electricity production was 4.88% last year, up from 4.22%.

France generated 379 TWh in 2019.

China should complete six nuclear reactors in 2020 which will add about 5.8 GWe of power. This will add about 38 TWh of power for a full year. Reactors completed in 2019 will be operating for all of 2020. China should reach about 400 TWh of power in 2020 from nuclear. This would be about half of the 800 TWh nuclear power generated by the USA.

China is targeting 200 GWe of nuclear generating capacity in place by 2035, out of a total generating capacity of 2600 GWe. Thermal power plant (coal) capacity is expected to increase from 1190 GWe in 2019 to 1300 GWe in 2035.

China’s nuclear-generating capacity increased by 9.1% year on year from 44.6 GWe to 48.7 GWe. There are 12 more nuclear reactors under construction in China, with a combined capacity of 12.2 GWe. There are 42 units planned that would add 48.70 GWe of capacity.

China’s total electricity generation totalled 7142.2 TWh in 2019, a 5.2% increase from the 6791.42 TWh produced in 2018.

2 thoughts on “China Will Surpass France in Nuclear Power Generation This Year”

  1. People don’t like being poor. Even the Greens want to be rich. They just want everyone else to be poor, while they jet off to some tropical paradise to bitch to each other about the gross over-indulgence of the lower orders.

    If we’re all to be rich, we need plenty of reliable and reasonably cheap energy to power the machines that have to do the work.

    It’s thus good to see the Chinese government is making sure that this energy is available. If you worry about climate change (I don’t), it makes sense to build nukes instead of coal burners.

    As Deng I think, said, ‘To be rich is glorious.’ I’m pleased to see that this one of his policies that China is sticking to.

  2. Thank you for the informative update about China’s projected 2020 rise to #2 in the world in nuclear power plant electricity generation, Brian. This is such a striking contrast with Mao-Era China (1949-1976), when not a single nuclear power plant had yet been built, thus causing Mao-era China to fall far behind its neighbors such as South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.

Comments are closed.