Following the operational start-ups of 11 nuclear reactors in the south and east, China next year will begin building two nuclear plants which contain two reactors each, in northeast China's Liaoning Province and east China's Shandong Province.

The Liaoning plant, consisting of two 1,080-MW (megawatt) reactors, will cost US$2.8 billion. It will be the first nuclear base in Northeast China, located at Hongyanhe, the coastal city of Dalian, a senior official from China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG) said.

"We expect to get the final go-ahead (to build the Dalian nuclear plant) from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) by the end of this year," said the official, who did not want to be identified.

CGNPG sources last week said that they plan to start the Dalian project as soon as possible.

The Dalian nuclear plant is scheduled to generate electricity in 2011, the company official said.

CGNPG plans to begin infrastructure construction and design at the Dalian plant within this month, the official said.

According to the investment agreement for the new project in Dalian, CGNPG and China Power Investment Corp (CPI) will each control a 45 percent stake. The remaining 10 percent will be equally divided between local companies Liaoning Energy Investment Group and Dalian Construction Investment Co, the CGNPG official said.

For the plant in Shandong Province, CPI has reached an initial agreement with the country's biggest nuclear plant constructor, China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC), to jointly build a nuclear plant at Haiyang.

The Haiyang plant, which contains two 1,000-MW reactors, will process at the same pace as the Dalian plant, CPI director Liu Changqing told China Daily yesterday.

"We have submitted the feasibility study to the NDRC," Liu said.

The Chinese Government has included both projects at Dalian and Haiyang in the country's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2011), a CNNC spokesman said last week.

Further details were not available for the Haiyang plant in Shandong.

The Dalian plant will cost less than the previous reactors, since CGNPG will use China's own nuclear technology CPR 1000 in designing the new reactors. This is based on technology adopted in the second phase of the Ling'ao nuclear project in South China's Guangdong Province.

The new reactors at the Dalian plant are expected to cost US$1,300 per kilowatt, compared with the US$1,500 per kilowatt for the Ling'ao phase II, which launched construction earlier this month and contains two 1,000-MW reactors.

"We will be very competitive in the sale prices due to the lower costs," the CGNPG said.

Coal-fired plants, which installed desulphurization facilities, sell their electricity to grid companies at 0.347 yuan (4.28 US cents) per kilowatt-hour in Dalian, according to the CGNPG official.

In order to cut pollution caused by the burning of coal, which fuels more than 70 percent of the country's electricity generators, the government ordered all the installation of desulphurization equipment in China's coal-fired plants to eliminate sulphur pollutants.

"We can make profit at the same price with these coal-fired plants," the company official said.

Equipment manufacturing and procurement for the new Dalian plant will be open for bid among domestic suppliers, with a small proportion expected to come from foreign companies, the CGNPG official said.

"Domestic suppliers will produce 80 percent of the equipment including the generation turbines designed for the new plant," he said.

CPI sources earlier said that as many as 10 reactors would be built at the two coastal places in Liaoning and Shandong, with six built at Dalian and four at Haiyang.

Currently, only CNNC and CGNPG are authorized to build nuclear plants in China. Other power companies, including CPI, will only be allowed a stake in the nuclear plant if they intend to participate in the nuclear sector.

Foreseeing great potential in nuclear energy, CGNPG, based in Guangdong, is also planning two more nuclear plants at two places called Taishan and Lufeng in the province.

"Another in the neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is also under study," the CGNPG official said.