VIENNA, 30 GIUGNO – The IAEA released its annual nuclear power status data for 2019 collected by the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS), the world’s most comprehensive database on nuclear power. PRIS, developed and maintained by the IAEA for over five decades, contains authoritative historical and current quantitative information on nuclear power reactors in operation and under construction or in decommissioning phase.
At the end of December 2019, the global operating nuclear power capacity was 392.1 GW(e), comprising 443 operational nuclear power reactors in 30 countries. Overall, nuclear power capacity since 2011 has shown a gradual growth trend, including some 23.2 GW(e) of new capacity added by the connection of new units to the grid or upgrades to existing reactors.
In 2019, though, total global capacity decreased by some 4.5 GW(e) compared with 2018, a figure that reflects Japan’s decision to permanently shut down five reactors that had not generated electricity since 2011. At the end of 2019, over 57.4 GW(e) of capacity (54 reactors) was under construction in 19 countries, including four that are building their first nuclear reactor. Near and long-term capacity growth prospects are centred in Asia, which at the end of 2019 reported some 36.5 GW(e) of nuclear power capacity (35 reactors) under construction.
Throughout 2019, nuclear power supplied 2586.2 TWh1/ of emission-free, low-carbon baseload electricity. That accounted for about 10% of total global electricity generation and nearly a third of the world’s low-carbon electricity production. Nuclear generation has continuously grown over the past years, expanding by more than 9% since 2012. Capacity added and units connected to the grid. In 2019, six new pressurized water reactors (PWR) were connected to the grid, resulting in an additional 5174 MW(e) of nuclear power capacity. Over 77% of this new capacity was added in Asia and included two reactor units in China at Taishan-2 (1660 MW(e)) and Yangjiang-6 (1000 MW(e)), and one reactor unit in the South Korea at Shin-Kori-4 (1340 MW(e)). In addition, three nuclear power reactor units with a total capacity of 1174 MW(e) were connected to grid in Russia, including Novovoronezh 2-2 (1114 MW(e)) and the world’s first commercial floating nuclear power plant ‘Akademik Lomonosov’ which comprises two units of 30MW(e) each.
New build construction. As of 31 December 2019, 54 reactors were under construction in 19 countries with a total of capacity of 57441 MW(e). Installed nuclear power capacity under construction has largely remained steady in recent years, except for continuous growth in Asia, where a total of 55067 MW(e) operational capacity (61 reactors) has been connected to the grid since 2005. In 2019, the construction of five PWR reactors began, with two in China (Zhangzhou-1 (1126 MW(e)) and Taipingling-1 (1116 MW(e)) and one each in Iran (Bushehr-2 (974 MW(e)), Russia (Kursk 2-2 (1175 MW(e)) and the United Kingdom (Hinkley Point C-2 (1630 MW(e)).