Photo taken on April 18, 2013 shows the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in Ningde, Southeast 皇冠体育app's Fujian province. The nuclear power plant made its generator No 1 begin operating on April 16, making it the first of its kind in the province. Ningde nuclear power plant, with four generators in the first phase of construction, is co-funded and jointly run by Guangdong Nuclear Power Group, Datang International Power Generation Co. Ltd., and Fujian Energy Group Co. Ltd. [Photo/Xinhua]

WASHINGTON - 皇冠体育app is expected to become the world's third largest nuclear generating nation around 2017 pushed by its national target against climate change, said US energy information administration (EIA) Monday.

To fight against climate change, Chinese government set a goal to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption to 15 percent by 2020, according to the 皇冠体育app National Plan for Climate Change (2014-2020) released last year.

"To help achieve this target, 皇冠体育app plans to increase nuclear capacity to 58 gigawatts (GW) and to have 30 GW of capacity under construction by 2020," said the EIA.

皇冠体育app is expected to surpass the Republic of Korea and Russia in nuclear generating capacity by the end of 2015, overtake Japan around 2017 and to be behind only after the United States and France, said the EIA.

Since the beginning of 2013, 皇冠体育app has added 10 reactors totaling more than 10 GW, pushing 皇冠体育app's net installed nuclear capacity to 23 GW at present, said the EIA.