Hitachi could stop funding the development of a new nuclear plant on Anglesey unless the government agrees a viable financial support package by the middle of next year, the head of the project has warned. Duncan Hawthorne, chief executive of the Horizon venture, said that its Japanese owners had already spent £2 billion and would not keep “throwing a bottomless pit of cash at a project without some certainty it can get to a successful conclusion”. Horizon is in talks with the UK and Japanese governments about possible direct state funding for its proposed plant at Wylfa Newydd. Ministers appeared yesterday to move closer to agreeing direct funding as the Nuclear Industry Council, a joint industry-government body that is co-chaired by Richard Harrington, the energy minister, recommended looking at models including the government taking an equity stake in projects. The National Audit Office has said that such models could significantly reduce the cost to consumers compared with Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first new plant in a generation. In further nuclear industry developments yesterday The Nuclear Industry Council set targets for reducing the costs to consumers of nuclear plants by up to 30 per cent by 2030. The head of the Nugen venture developing reactors in Cumbria said that its proposed acquisition from Toshiba by South Korea’s Kepco, which plans to use its own reactor design, could delay its first power until 2030. The government announced a fresh review into ways of financing small nuclear reactors, and £4 million funding for feasibility studies into other early-stage technologies. Mr Hawthorne acknowledged that the government as a whole was yet to be convinced on the idea of direct financing, with the Treasury concerned about anything that would put a plant on its balance sheet, but said time was running out. He told The Times: “We have been saying we need to have some confidence that the basis of a transaction exists and we need to see some documentary evidence of that. By the middle of 2018, we need to have something tangible to show to our shareholders that allows them to keep funding.”
Times 8th Dec 2017 read more »
