BEIJING, April 20 (Reuters) - China will start building five nuclear plants this year, including two based on technology from Westinghouse, owned by Japan's Toshiba, and one based on technology from France's Areva, Sun Qin, deputy chief of China's National Energy Agency, told a conference on Monday.
The five were Sanmen in Zhejiang province and Haiyang in Shandong, both based on Westinghouse's AP1000; Taishan in Guangdong province, using Areva technology; Changjiang in Hainan province and Rongcheng in Shandong.
"The high temperature gas cooled reactor in Rongcheng will start construction in September," Sun said, referring to Chinese technology.
China has 24 reactors under construction with total generating capacity of 25.4 gigawatts, he said.
(Reporting by Jim Bai and Tom Miles; Editing by Ken Wills)