China has been developing offshore floating nuclear power plants. Large state-owned nuclear power companies have set up new companies to develop such technology and will be put into operation as soon as 2019. By the 2020s, China will build about 20 offshore nuclear power plants and may choose to locate them in Bohai in northern China and South China Seas.
Those to promote China’s maritime nuclear power concept are China National Nuclear Corporation, China General Nuclear Power Group, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation.
Among them, the earliest move was China’s largest nuclear power company CNNC. CNNC, together with five major state-owned enterprises such as China State Shipbuilding Corporation and Shanghai Electric Group, set up a new company “CNNC Maritime Nuclear Power Development Co., Ltd.,” through its subsidiaries.
The capital of the establishment of the company is 1 billion yuan, covering all aspects of offshore nuclear power from development, manufacturing, operation, electricity sales to other aspects. The offshore nuclear power generation capacity could reach 100 Mw kilowatts, and the output power is expected to be about 10% of the standard nuclear power plant.
As for the time of operation, according to CNNC executives, Unit 1 will be completed in 2018 and put into operation in 2019.
However, according to source in the nuclear industry, there are still many issues that need to be solved in offshore nuclear power technology and may be delayed until the 2020s.
