(Yicai Global) July 29 -- China's National Energy Administration has approved three large-scale commercial nuclear power projects, putting the country's atomic power program back on track after a four-year construction pause.

Located in Zhangzhou, southeastern Fujian province, Rongcheng, northeastern Shandong province and Taipingling, southeastern Guangdong province, these are the first projects approved since 2015, when China gave the go-ahead to some eight new plants.

China, the world's third-biggest nuclear power producer by capacity, halted new plant construction in the wake of Japan's Fukushima reactor disaster in 2011. At the end of last year, China had 45 nuclear power-generating units with a capacity of 45.9 million kilowatts and another 11 units under construction.

The new Zhangzhou project will use China's domestically developed third-generation nuclear energy technology known as Hualong One, China Nuclear Power said in a statement on July 26.

Jointly developed by China National Nuclear Corporation and China General Nuclear Power Corporation, this technology was first used in the Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant Unit 5 which began construction in 2015. It has subsequently been used in the building of two plants in Fangchenggang in southern Guangxi province and two plants in Karachi, Pakistan. The Fuqing Unit 5 is expected to be the first of these to be completed and will likely start generating electricity in 2020.

The Shandong Rongcheng project will use CAP1400, another independently developed third-generation nuclear power technology.