China could struggle to meet its 2020 nuclear energy targets with the industry still waiting on a cautious government to speed up the approval process, a senior industry executive said on Saturday. But as it waits for domestic projects to go ahead, the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) is now ready to start selling reactors overseas, said the firm's chairman Sun Qin, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the annual session of parliament.
China planned to raise its total installed nuclear capacity to 58 gigawatts (GW) by 2020, up from 20 GW now, but despite ending a freeze on new approvals late in 2013, the state has not yet given any new projects the full go-ahead following a nationwide safety probe in the wake of Japan's Fukushima crisis.
"The country's determination to develop the nuclear industry has not changed but the planning has slowed a little," said Sun. "The target won't change, but it will need hard work, especially these next two years." Sun said he hoped his firm would win approvals for six reactors this year, with new units at Fuqing in Fujian province and Sanmen in Zhejiang likely to start construction. China is now in the process of building advanced "third-generation" reactors and would be in a better position to press ahead once those are completed, he said.