China plans to build two more 1,000-MW (megawatts) nuclear reactors in East China's Shandong Province by 2015. This follows last year's announcement that two reactors would be built in the province by 2011.

The nation's biggest nuclear reactor builder, China National Nuclear Corp, on Wednesday signed an agreement with the Shandong government to set up a venture to build two reactors at Rushan, near the coastal city of Weihai.

"We will start the preparatory work this year and aim to generate electricity during the country's 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15)," China Nuclear said in a statement.

Five-year plans are long-term national programmes that list the country's major industrial and energy projects for that period.

Rushan could accommodate as many as six 1,000-MW reactors. These could be put into operation after 2015 in the second and third stages of the project, China Nuclear said.

The country's second largest nuclear power plant builder, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group, last December said it had reached an initial accord with China Nuclear to build two 1,000-MW reactors at Haiyang, also in Shandong Province.

Officials from China Nuclear yesterday declined to comment on the cost of the Rushan nuclear plant.

But Kang Rixin, president of the Beijing-based China Nuclear, earlier said the country would have to spend about 400 billion yuan (US$50 billion) by 2020 to build about 30 1,000-MW reactors.

That means each reactor would involve an investment of 13 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion).

In a drive to diversify its energy mix and meet surging demand, China is vigorously pushing the development of nuclear power as well as renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.

The country intends to increase the amount of installed nuclear power capacity from the current 16,000 MW to 40,000 MW, or 4 per cent of the total installed capacity, within 15 years, Kang said.

China has planned a string of nuclear power plants along the eastern coast, with others under consideration in land-lock southwestern areas, China Nuclear officials earlier told China Daily.

Currently, nine nuclear reactors are in operation in China. They are located in the southern and eastern provinces of Guangdong and Zhejiang.

That figure will increase to 11 by the end of this year, as two more reactors are scheduled to start operation soon in Tianwan in East China's Jiangsu Province.

China Nuclear last week announced it had linked its first reactor at Tianwan with the national electricity grid.

For the moment, only two companies, China Nuclear and China Guangdong Nuclear, are authorized to build nuclear plants in China.

But other power majors, such as Huadian and China Power Investment Corp, are also striving to gain a share of the huge market by taking a stake in partnerships with the two nuclear builders.

State-owned China Nuclear and China Huadian Group last Thursday announced the setting-up of a joint-venture in East China's Fujian Province to develop as many as six 1,000-MW nuclear reactors in the province.