CONSULTING

The 13 th Five Year Plan is also proposing to increase the installed capacity of wind to 250 GW by
2020. 348 Chinese officials envisage that there will be 58 GW of nuclear capacity in operation by
2020, 349 up from 29.4 GW in mid-2016. However, the 21 units with 21.5 GW under construction
will not be sufficient to reach the target. And the average construction time of the 25 units that
China brought on line over the past decade was 5.7 years and many of the units under construction
encounter significant delays. It appears therefore practically impossible for the country to reach
its 2020 nuclear target.
While the power sector in China continues to be dominated by coal, the growth rate of non-fossil
fuels is still impressive. This increase in electricity production is delivering changes in the power
mix. While China's the nuclear buildup is fast—production increase by a factor of over three in
10 years, a factor of ten in 15 years—the renewable energy deployment has been breathtaking. In
a decade Wind power increased generation from virtually nothing, that is less than 0.1 TWh in
2006 to 185 TWh in 2015. Solar PV went from less than 1 TWh in 2010 to 39 TWh in 2015
(see Figure 37).
In the European Union, between 2000 and 2015, the net changes in the capacity of power
plants are estimated to be an increase of 129 GW in wind, 99 GW in natural gas and 96 GW in solar,
while there have been decreases in nuclear by 14.8 GW, coal 28.3 GW and fuel oil by 28.2 GW. 350
Figure 38: Startup and Shutdown of Electricity Generating Capacity in the EU in 2015
GWe
15
12.8
Startup and Shutdown of Electricity Generating Capacity in the EU 2015
(by Energy Source in GWe)
10
8.5
5
0
-5
-0.3
1.9
-4.3
0.5
-0.5
4.7
-3.3
0.2
-1.8
-10
© Mycle Schneider Consulting
Wind PV Natural Gas Other
Renewables
-8.1
Coal Fuel Oil Nuclear
Source: European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) 2016 351
348 GWEC, “Global Wind Report, Annual Market Update 2015”, April 2016, see http://www.gwec.net/wpcontent/uploads/vip/GWEC-Global-Wind-2015-Report_April-2016_22_04.pdf,
accessed 30 June 2016.
349Reuters, “China on course to meet 2020 nuclear capacity targets -official”, 27 January 2016, see
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/27/reuters-america-china-on-course-to-meet-2020-nuclear-capacity-targetsofficial.html,
accessed 23 May 2016.
350 European Wind Energy Association, “Wind in Power, 2015 European statistics”, February 2016.
351 EWEA, “Wind in Power, 2015 European statistics”, February 2016.
Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al. 111 World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016