BEIJING, March 6 -- China has approved at least six nuclear power facilities since it started obliging prospective new projects to be examined and green-lit at the end of 2012, a report in Thursday's Shanghai Securities News said.

Though none of them has publicly announced a start to construction, some may begin work this year amid the country's efforts to reform patterns of energy output and consumption, the newspaper cited an anonymous source as saying.

China's installed nuclear power capacity equated to about 1.17 percent of the country's total installed power capacity at the end of 2013.

The country's installed nuclear power capacity stood at 14.61 million kilowatts (kw) at the end of last year, up 16.2 percent on an annual basis. At the same time, China's total installed power capacity topped 1.25 billion kw, up 9.3 percent year on year, said the National Energy Administration (NEA) in February.

In 2013 alone, the country's installed power capacity climbed by 94 million kw, including 2.21 million kw from nuclear power, according to the NEA.