In its Energy Work Guidance Opinion for 2018, the NEA (National Energy Administration) said China’s installed nuclear generating capacity would be boosted by a total of 6 GWe this year with the start-up of the Sanmen 1 and Haiyang 1 AP1000s, the Taishan 1 EPR, the Tianwan 3 VVER-1000 and the Yangjiang 5 ACPR1000.
China will continue to implement major nuclear science and technology projects, build a sharing system for experimental platforms for nuclear power technology and equipment, speed up the establishment of major projects for small-scale reactors and actively promote the comprehensive utilization of nuclear energy”.
Under the latest Five-Year Plan – published in March 2016 – China should have some 58 GWe of nuclear-generating capacity in operation by 2020, up from the current capacity of almost 35 GWe. In addition, a further 30 GWe of nuclear capacity will be under construction by 2020.
China is still building every kind of energy production including coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind and hydropower, solar and wind.
China is raising natural gas share of the energy mix to 7.5 percent, while reducing coal’s to 59 percent.
The NDRC also said the country would take a multi-pronged approach to increasing gas supply, including signing long-term deals with Russia, as well as other Central Asian and Pacific countries, to secure imports and developing more unconventional sources such as tight gas, shale and coal gas. Supplies from Russia are set to start Oct. 2019, CNPC’s Wang said.
China’s plans to cut 150 million tons of coal production capacity this year shouldn’t be interpreted as a turn away from the fuel, said Ling Wen, general manager of China Energy Investment Corp., the newly-formed world’s biggest power company, according to a report from China Mining News. Rather than abandon it, China needs to push for cleaner and higher-efficiency use of the fuel, Ling said.
Newly installed wind power capacity in 2018 will rise to 20 gigawatts, while construction will begin on new projects with combined capacity of 25 gigawatts, the NEA said.
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