The nuclear industry brought more than 9 GWe of new plant generation of electricity on line last year, the largest annual increase in 25 years, according to a new World Nuclear Association report, putting it on track to achieve the Harmony goal of providing 25% of electricity in 2050 using 1,000 GWe of new capacity. In the World Nuclear Performance Report 2017, the Association detailed power generation and construction achievements for the previous year. The ten new reactors which came on line in 2016 added 9.1 GWe to global capacity and took the total nuclear capacity supplying electricity to the grid past 350 GWe for the first time ever. This does not include around 40 GWe of operable nuclear plant that remains offline in Japan and is making slow progress towards restart. Growth in nuclear power is being led by China, of course, where five of the ten new reactors are located. This trend is likely to continue in the coming years with around a third of reactors currently under construction being located in China, said Agneta Rising, the Association's director-general.
Chinese industry constructed its new reactors in 5 years and 9 months on average. Series build is a major factor in this. A case study showed that 912 issues were identified during the construction of Yangjiang 1-3. Successfully addressing these helped unit 4 to be built more than ten months more quickly than unit 1. Steady performance is a feature of nuclear power plants and this continued across the fleet with a global average capacity factor of 80.5%, down just slightly on last years 81%. According to the report, 64% of the world reactors operated at an average of 80% of their full potential across the entire year. Only 8% of reactors achieve below 50% of their potential output. The report states that there is no significant age-related trend in nuclear reactor performance, with older units achieving the same level of performance as newer ones.
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