Research Report of Chinese Nuclear Power Industry, 2009

The energy demands and energy saving & emission reduction are the double pressures for the fast development of Chinese economy. The nuclear power, however, is the most competitive solution to change Chinese energy structures and meet the energy demands.

By the end of 2008, total 11 nuclear power generating sets had been in operation with the total installed capacity of 9.07 million kilowatts, accounting for 1.3% of the total installed power capacity. The annual nuclear power production was 68.394 billion KWh, accounting for 2% of the total power production in the country.

The nuclear power production in 19 countries all over the world accounts for more than 25% of the total power production, including 76.8% in France, 19.4% in America and 27.5% in Japan.

Compared with the thermal power, the nuclear power in China still has no price competitiveness. On the one hand, it attributes to the comparatively low price of the coal. The statistics shows that the investments in the thermal power are about 4 thousand Yuan (580 USD) per kilowatt, but it needs 10 thousand Yuan (1.46 thousand USD) per kilowatt for the nuclear power, 6 thousand Yuan (880 USD) differences. On the other hand, it spends more time on constructing the nuclear power, which takes about 70 months, but the thermal power takes about 30 months. The expense of the nuclear power and the low exploitation costs and economical usage of the coal resources lead to long-term dependency of Chinese energy system on the thermal power.

It needs to realize the production in large scale so as to cut down the costs of the nuclear power. The performance of the nuclear power equipments is 30 years’ longer than that of thermal power equipments and the cost composition makes it competitive in the later period. The investments in the nuclear power fixed assets costs 50 to 60 percent of the total investments or higher, but the thermal power only accounts for 30 to 40 percent. The nuclear fuels cost 20% of the total investments, which is 50% or higher for the thermal power. Meanwhile, for the operation costs, the nuclear power occupies 15% of the total costs, but 10% for the thermal power. Because of the giant fuel costs of the thermal power, the costs of the nuclear power are comparative low after depreciation allowance.

Meanwhile, there is no definite direction for the technical route choice of Chinese nuclear power, which is also an important factor affecting the nuclear power construction process in China. The present nuclear power technologies in China, including French technologies in Dayawan nuclear power plant, Russian technologies in Tianwan nuclear power plant and Canadian technologies in the third phase of Qinshan nuclear power plant, have not formed standard systems for far. The time and costs spent on the nuclear power technologies and the achievements in China are far behind those in France, Japan and South Korea.