United Kingdom approves nuclear plant deal

September 15: United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May has given a green signal to the Hinkley nuclear power project, but with new security conditions on the £18 billion deal.

According to a former colleague, ex-business minister Vince Cable, May had expressed concern at the “gung-ho” attitude that Cameron took towards courting Chinese investment.

The project will now go ahead under the condition that EDF will be banned from selling its controlling stake in the project prior to completion of construction without United Kingdom government approval. When EDF’s board voted to approve the project on July 28, Theresa May’s government called time out and said they wanted to review the plan.

Ministers have chose to back the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station but will impose a new legal framework covering future foreign investment in Britain’s critical infrastructure. In Coalition Government, the Lib Dems blocked George Osborne’s plan to offer billions of pounds worth of Government subsidies to the project and insisted that there would be no public subsidy.

The Hinkley announcement does not mention China’s hopes to design and build a reactor at Bradwell in Essex, nor the possibility of Chinese involvement in the Sizewell nuclear plant in Suffolk.

The firm will need to get the reactor design and technology approved for use in the United Kingdom before building the station, with one third funding from EDF. The British day-ahead power price is now around 40 pounds per MWh, meaning consumers would have to pay prices twice as high for Hinkley Point electricity.

Unions, the CBI and the energy sector welcomed the decision, saying it was good news for jobs and for the future of the United Kingdom energy supply.

“It is extraordinary that they have not reviewed the price per unit of power”, said Mr Barry Gardiner, the opposition Labour Party’s energy spokesman.

It will generate up to 3.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to charge 640 million iPhones at once. Consumers will effectively pay the difference between that and the market price.

The project, which is planned to be commissioned by 2025, is expected to create up to 25,000 jobs and supply power to about six million homes.

A point of contention is the company’s strategy to work “vigorously” with its Chinese partners at the China General Nuclear Power Corp. on serving the power needs of the British economy. French utility company EDF will contribute the remaining 66.5 per cent. That is exactly what these changes will achieve. Shadow energy minister, Barry Gardiner said it was “too high a price” and it should have been renegotiated.

An official statement said the British government had made a decision to approve the country’s first nuclear power plant in two decades following a new agreement with EDF, but added that new measures would be taken to enhance security.