A total of 47 nuclear power reactors with an installed capacity of 48.73 million kilowatts (kwh) are in operation on the Chinese mainland, as of June 2019, ranking the 3rd in the world, data from the China Nuclear Society showed on Wednesday.
It is estimated that the installed capacity of China's nuclear power will reach 51.03 million kwh in 2020.
"The independent innovation system of China's nuclear power has been continuously strengthened, and the localization rate of key equipment and materials for nuclear power has been significantly improved," said Wang Shoujun, chairman of the China Nuclear Society, according to a report from the Xinhua News Agency.
For example, China's homegrown Hualong One and CAP1400 represented the country's independent, third-generation nuclear power technology.
Significant progress has also been made in the Ghana micro-reactor low-concentration transformation, the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the China Advanced Research Reactor, the Superconducting Tokamak Experimental device, the China Spallation Neutron Source and other large scientific devices and advanced nuclear science and technology, Wang said.
With the development in nuclear technology, related technology applications have already formed a certain industrial scale in radiation processing, nuclear medicine and public security. In recent years, the annual growth rate of the domestic nuclear technology application industry exceeded 20 percent, with annual output reaching hundreds of billions of yuan, according to Wang.
The US has recently added the China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), China's largest state-owned nuclear company, and several of its subsidiaries to its Entity List. This bars US companies from selling products to those enterprises, one of a series of US moves to crack down on China's high-technology sector.
Chinese industry players and experts said the ban's influence on CGN is controllable, and has in effect further accelerated China's efforts to reduce its reliance on the US and seek technological independence in the nuclear sector.
China's nuclear industry has entered into another booming period, Wang said.
