China is set to beat its 2020 targets for nuclear power, the chairman of the country’s top nuclear firm said on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress.

China is undertaking the world’s biggest expansion of civilian nuclear and is seeking to expand its power grid by as much as 80 % over this decade.

"Nuclear plants will play an important role in reaching the government’s 2020 goal of raising the proportion of energy produced by non-fossil fuel to 15%,” Sun Qin, chairman of China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC).

The expansion plans were suspended in 2011 following the earthquake and nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan, but are now back on track as construction on new plants is expected to resume with approvals granted in the coming months.

In 2013, non-fossil fuel took up nearly 10% of China’s primary energy use. Now China gets below 2% of its electricity from 17 nuclear reactors.

China will surpass its goal of having 58 GW of installed nuclear power capacity by the end of the decade, said Sun, adding that the country may build 20 or more nuclear reactors in the next six years.

Thirty-one additional units are under construction, including a pair of AP1000 reactors located at Sanmen in Zhejiang Province. CNNC is building the two reactors there with US-based Westinghouse, and they may be operational by next year.