China Power Investment Corp (CPIC), one of China's power majors, plans to build 10 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors on the eastern coast of Liaoning and Shandong provinces in a bid to cut reliance on coal, a senior official from the company told China Daily yesterday.

"We will build six 1,000-megawatt reactors at Haiyang in east China's Shandong Province, as well as four similar ones at Hongyanhe, Dalian in Liaoning Province," Liu Changqing, a senior director with CPIC yesterday said in a telephone interview.

Preliminary project approvals, including the environmental protection assessment and the safety conditions at the sites, have been passed by the central government, according to Liu.

Further procedures have still to be examined by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), before the infrastructure construction begins, said industry sources.

The construction schedule is still unknown. It will be decided by the NDRC, according to Liu.

Liu did not disclose the total costs of the projects yesterday.

Liu said that no decision had been made on what technology the 10 reactors will use. The final say remains up to the country's top regulators, such as the NDRC.

Liu said his company aims for a balanced portfolio in power generation, using coal, hydro and nuclear sources. "We already have 1,350 megawatts of nuclear power generation capacity, through owning stakes in the existing Zhejiang and Guangdong nuclear power plants," the director added.

But he declined to give details about the shareholder structure for the 10 new reactors.

In an effort to cut pollution and its reliance on oil imports, China has vowed to increase its use of nuclear energy. The nation has set an ambitious target of building at least two new reactors a year. By 2020, 4 percent of China's power needs will be supplied by nuclear energy, compared with some 2 percent now.

The country currently has nine nuclear reactors running in the Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces and, by adding in the two reactors currently under construction in east China's Jiangsu Province, total capacity stands at about 9,000 megawatts.

Locations for the country's nuclear power plants have been selected at coastal areas in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shandong, Liaoning and Fujian, a director named Chen from the China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) told China Daily yesterday.

Chen said at least 10 domestic companies, including CNNC and CPIC, have participated in building nuclear plants across the country.

CPIC, the Beijing-based parent company of Hong Kong-listed China Power International Development Ltd, boasted corporate capital of 102.9 billion yuan (US$12 billion) at the end of last year and its aggregate installed capacity reached approximately 28 gigawatts for the same period.

(China Daily July 15, 2005)