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China Inc.’s Nuclear-Power Push
In a shift, Chinese state-owned companies seek to roll out advanced reactors for export
By BRIAN SPEGELE
Feb. 23, 2016 1:15 p.m. ET
49 COMMENTS
SHENZHEN, China—China wants to shift from customer to competitor in the global nuclear industry as it seeks to roll out its first advanced reactor for export, a move that adds new competition for already struggling global firms.
Two state-owned firms teamed up to design the advanced indigenous Hualong One reactor with plans to sell overseas. On Tuesday, one of them, China General Nuclear Power Group, hosted dozens of business executives from Kenya, Russia, Indonesia and elsewhere, as well as diplomats and journalists, at its Daya Bay nuclear-power station to promote the Hualong One for export.
Asked how much of the global market share for new nuclear reactors CGN wants Hualong One to win, Zheng Dongshan, CGN’s deputy general manager in charge of international business, said: “The more the better.”
The move marks a turnaround for China and the nuclear-power industry. For three decades, China served as a big market for nuclear giants including U.S.-based, Japanese-owned Westinghouse Electric Co. and France’s Areva SA. More than 30 reactors have been built across China since the 1990s with reliance on foreign design and technology.
China’s push into nuclear power comes as many nations have been re-examining the risks of nuclear energy and its costs compared with natural gas and other fuels. Two dozen reactors are under construction across China today, representing more than one-third of all reactors being built globally, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The scale and pace of building has given CGN and other Chinese companies opportunities to bulk up on experience in the home market and gain skills in developing reactor parts, technologies and systems. That experience, combined with China’s lower costs of labor and capital, makes the new Chinese reactor potentially attractive to international customers, industry experts said.
“It’s the right time to promote the Hualong One,” said François Morin, China director of the World Nuclear Association, a trade group. “They have a window of opportunity.”
No doubt, turning promotion into sales takes time, and there is no guarantee the Hualong One will find success abroad. Discussions over building the reactor overseas in many cases remain preliminary, and the first of Hualong One model reactor won’t enter service in China for several more years.
But the Hualong One reactor marks a big leap by China’s national nuclear champions to move up the export value chain. Jointly designed by CGN and China National Nuclear Corp., the reactor, also known as the HPR1000, has similar specifications to other so-called Generation 3 reactors such as Westinghouse’s AP1000, like advanced so-called passive safety systems.
Mr. Zheng, CGN’s deputy general manager, said the development of the new reactor model reflected technological leaps made by China’s nuclear industry since the 1990s.
“We developed the HPR1000 because we accumulated experience and because we knew how to incorporate our experience into new technology,” he said.
The nuclear reactor relies in part on modified French technology used in China for many years. But CGN says the new design is China’s own. The developers received hundreds of original patents for the reactor, and industry experts said they don’t foresee major intellectual property issues in exporting it.
While CGN and China National Nuclear designed the reactor together, the companies are marketing it separately, CGN executives said. A third company, State Nuclear Power Technology Corp., plans to export another reactor based on U.S. technology.
Regulatory approvals are among the challenges China Inc. faces as it seeks to sell homegrown reactors abroad. CGN executives said obtaining needed regulatory permits in the U.K. and other countries for the Hualong One would still take several years, a process that would need to conclude before construction gets under way.
CGN says it is more transparent than many Chinese state-owned enterprises, offering public tours of its Daya Bay facility outside the southern city of Shenzhen. CGN’s first nuclear-power plant went online in the 1990s and supplies power for Hong Kong. The company owns 16 commercial reactors, with an additional 12 under construction.
At the heart of its sales pitch for potential customers overseas, CGN touts itself as a “one-stop shop” for nuclear needs—from nuclear design to construction, financing and other services.
“If you choose the HPR1000, it’s like you’re joining a big family,” Yang Maochun, a deputy general manager of CGN’s international business department, told the visiting foreign executives on Tuesday.
CGN executives said the cost of building a Hualong One would vary depending on labor costs and other factors, though they said the price for the units being built in China is around $2,500 per kilowatt—a midrange for reactor costs globally. The Hualong One, the executives said, was designed to balance affordability with incorporating the industry’s most advanced technology.
Four Hualong One reactors are already under construction in the south Chinese regions of Fujian and Guangxi, with additional units planned or being considered by CGN and CNNC in the U.K., Pakistan, Argentina and elsewhere.
Political concerns over Chinese nuclear investment in the West could also pose hurdles, though these may be overcome through jointly investing with local partners.
While acknowledging CGN’s deepening competition with Western nuclear companies, Mr. Zheng said the company remains eager to cooperate with them too. He cited joint investment with France’s électricité de France SA in the U.K.’s Hinkley Point C project as a model for cooperation, and said CGN would be willing to help market non-Chinese reactors in the future as well.
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