China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corp will start work on a nuclear power plant in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region later this month.

Guangxi Investment Group will partner China Guangdong in the Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Station. The State Council gave the green light for the project on July 15, according to Lou Yun, a China Guangdong spokesman.

The new plant will have six pressurized water reactors with an installed capacity of about 1,000 megawatts (mW) each, said Lou. However, he refused to divulge any further details or the actual amount the company is investing in the project.

Lou indicated that the first phase of the project may cost around 24 billion yuan and the localization rate will be around 80 percent.

Two pressurized water reactors will be installed in the first phase, and one will be ready for commercial operation by 2015 and the second by 2016. The two reactors are expected to generate 15 billion kilowatts hours (kWh) of power every year.

"China is stepping up construction of nuclear plants and in the future each province may have a facility of its own. Hence it is natural that the company is building a plant in the southeast region," said Lin Boqiang, director of the Center of China Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University.

The project is part of the 23 key projects that are expected to promote the development of the economically underdeveloped western areas.

Lin said currently most of the power produced in Guangxi is coal- and hydro-based as the region lacks wind and solar resources.

China has recently embarked on a plan to increase the use of non-fossil energy to 15 percent of primary energy consumption by 2020.

At present there are around 11 nuclear reactors that generate about 9.1 gigawatts of power and account for about 1 percent of the total capacity in China.

Lin, however, ruled out the possibility of uranium price hikes in the short term as a result of the nuclear reactor initiative. "Prices of uranium will firm up in the long term as expansion plans of China and other countries would continue to fuel demand," Lin said.

However, it would take at least five or six years for the planned projects to be completed, thus having little impact on uranium prices in the short term, he said.

The Guangxi reactor will also help cut pollution by reducing energy consumption, analysts said. The first phase of the Fangchengang project will cut coal consumption by 6 million tons, carbon dioxide emissions by about 14.8 million tons, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by 136,400 tons compared with coal-fired power plants of a similar scale.

(China Daily July 20, 2010)