The £840 million bill for connecting up the Hinkley Point power plant could be cut by a fifth after Ofgem said National Grid had failed to justify using an expensive new pylon design and had budgeted too much for flooding that may never occur. The utility giant has submitted plans to the regulator for a new high voltage power line to carry electricity from the £18 billion-plus nuclear plant that EDF is constructing in Somerset. It would involve five miles of underground cable through the Mendip hills and 29 miles of overhead power lines crossing through the Somerset Levels. National Grid plans to use a new design of “T” shaped pylons that won a 2011 government-backed competition to replace the taller “lattice tower” style that has been in use for decades. Ofgem said yesterday that the company had “not fully justified the estimated additional £65 million cost of the new ‘T-pylon’ technology it intends to use”. National Grid has already been granted a development consent order by the government to build the link using the T-pylons and said that it would have to press ahead with using them even if Ofgem ruled it could not recoup the extra cost.
Times 31st Aug 2017 read more »
Telegraph 30th Aug 2017 read more »
A half-mile (1km) exclusion zone has been set up in the Bristol Channel near the Hinkley Point nuclear power stations after a third unexploded second world war bomb was discovered in as many weeks. Bomb disposal experts will carry out a controlled explosion on the 250lb (113kg) ordnance on Wednesday, two miles north-west of the power plants. HM Coastguard has set up an exclusion zone around the unexploded device and warned ships to avoid the area. The bomb was reported in the early hours of Wednesday by a diving team from the Hinkley Point plant. They were clearing the seabed for intake and outtake pipes for cooling water for the reactors on the Hinkley Point C plant. It is the third suspected second world war bomb to be found in the Bristol Channel in the past three weeks. An EDF source conceded that divers could find more unexploded ordnance before the exercise to clear the area was completed, as the channel was used as a former army training range. The project to clear the seabed is expected to take several more weeks.
Guardian 30th Aug 2017 read more »
Energy Voice 30th Aug 2017 read more »
Bridgwater Mercury 30th Aug 2017 read more »
City AM 30th Aug 2017 read more »