The Dayawan nuclear power base, China's largest, generated a record 45.4 billion kwh of electricity last year, the operator said on Wednesday.

The figure accounted for 8.6 percent of the 528 billion kwh generated over the past two decades, said Jiang Xinghua, president of Dayawan Nuclear Power Management Company.

The base, which has six generation units from two nuclear power plants by the South China Sea in Guangdong, has supplies one tenth of the province's power.

The base could cut coal consumption by 14.7 million tones and reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide by 36.2 million tones and of sulfur dioxide by 350,000 tonnes, Jiang said.

The environmental benefits equate to the planting of 100,000 hectares of woods in the Pearl River delta, the country's manufacturing center, he said.