China conducts safety inspections on nuclear plants

Mandatory safety inspections of existing nuclear power plants in the China has been completed by the China Nuclear Energy Association.

This will allow the China to embark on its reactor building programme, which was suspended in March following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Chinese Government said its commitment to nuclear power remains unchanged and it was originally planning to raise its 2020 nuclear capacity target to 80GW.

Total nuclear capacity in China is expected to rise to 40GW by 2015, with another 28 reactor units scheduled to be into operation, according to CNEA.

The state-owned China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group began commercial operations of a new 1GW nuclear unit at its Ling Ao facility in Guangdong earlier this week.

The facility now has 14 reactors, bringing its total nuclear capacity to 11.878GW.