"The 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05) lists the construction of nuclear plants within the period, though the exact number has not yet been decided," said Jiang Xinxiong, deputy director of the Finance Commission of the NPC Standing Committee.

Jiang said Shandong, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces are currently applying for permission to build nuclear plants.

Zan Yunlong, an NPC deputy and chairman of the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group, said the province has put forward two proposals for nuclear plants - the construction of two new generating units with a combined installed capacity of 2 million kilowatts in the Daya Bay nuclear plant and the construction of a nuclear plant with an installed capacity of 6 million kilowatts in Yangjiang.

The Daya Bay proposal is expected to require an investment of more than 20 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion) and the Yangjiang plant is expected to cost up to 70 billion yuan (US$8.5 billion).

Shandong Province also wants to build a US$3 billion nuclear power plant with a total installed capacity of 2 million kilowatts in Haiyang.

The province obtained letters of intent for the financing of the plant in 1999, "but the scheme is still waiting for State approval," said Lin Shuxiang, director of the Development Planning Commission of Shandong Province.

Lu Wenzhou, vice-director of the Development Planning Commission of Zhejiang Province, said his province is planning to build a nuclear plant with an installed capacity of more than 2 million kilowatts in Sanmen.

The location of new nuclear power plants will be governed by the location of existing plants. The idea is to place the new ones near the existing ones to achieve an "effect of scale," Jiang said.

Zan said odds favour Guangdong, adding that a nuclear plant with a total installed capacity of 900,000 kilowatts is already in operation in Daya Bay and another 2-million-kilowatt plant is under construction in Ling'ao, Guangdong Province.

The 300,000-kilowatt Qinshan Nuclear Plant, another nuclear plant presently in operation, is located in Zhejiang Province.

With a total installed capacity of 2.1 million kilowatts, the Qinshan and the operating Daya Bay plants produce around 14 billion kilowatt-hours annually, or 1 percent of the country's total power output, much lower than the world's average of 17 per cent.

Currently, four nuclear power projects, which will have a total installed capacity of 6,600 megawatts, are under construction in China.

Analysts say the nuclear plants are expected to optimize the power mix and improve environmental conditions in the power-hungry coastal regions.

(China Daily 03/13/2001)