Bank of China (BOC) may supply China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co. with 60 billion yuan (US$7.51 billion) in credit toward the country's ambitious drive for nuclear energy, Xinhua reported late Monday.

State-owned China Guangdong Power is one of the main players as the government looks to expand nuclear power generation over the next 15 years, easing the country's dependence on coal.

China Guangdong Power and BOC signed a "strategic cooperation agreement" Monday that may pave the way for the credit over the next five years, Xinhua reported.

The bank's president, Li Lihui, said China's nuclear power industry "faces an historic development opportunity," according to Xinhua. "Developing nuclear power has become a major strategic step for upgrading our country's energy structure," Li said.

China, the world's second-largest energy consumer, has announced plans to spend some 400 billion yuan on building some 30 nuclear reactors by 2020, bringing its installed nuclear capacity to 40 gigawatts.

But those plans have been clouded by uncertainty about the timing and ultimate scale of the expansion.

China has nine working reactors that supply around 2.3 percent of its electricity. It aims to boost the amount of power from nuclear plants to 4 percent within 15 years.

Guangdong Power operates four reactors in Guangdong totaling about 4,000 megawatts. It plans to expand its nuclear capacity to possibly 30,000 to 34,000 megawatts by 2020.

One of its planned plants, at Hongyanhe in the northeastern province of Liaoning, would consist of two 1,080- megawatt reactors at a cost of US$2.8 billion.

Editor: Yan