Work resumes on Shidao Bay nuclear plant which will be China's largest

Work has resumed on a "fourth generation" nuclear power plant, suspended after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, which will be China's biggest nuclear facility.

Construction of the coastal Shidao Bay nuclear plant in Rongcheng, a city in the eastern province of Shandong, resumed last month, the Economic Observer, a Beijing-based weekly newspaper, reported yesterday, adding that the plant is "China's biggest planned nuclear project".

The plant, which will be cooled by high temperature gas, will become "the world's first successfully commercialised fourth-generation nuclear technology demonstration project", the report said.

The plant was designed to be safer and cuts down on costs, the report quoted a spokesman from the China Huaneng Group, the biggest investor in the plant, as saying.

The plant is expected to begin supplying electricity to the grid by 2017 and will have a final generating capacity of 6,600 megawatts, the report said.

The newspaper report added that initial investment in the project was three billion yuan (HK$3.68 billion).