Hitachi Reveals Team for Nuclear Power Project in Wales

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Horizon Nuclear Power (Gloucester, England) has revealed the delivery team behind a £10 billion ($14.6 billion) nuclear power plant project in Wales.

Owned by Hitachi Limited (OTC:HTHIF) (Tokyo, Japan), Horizon has created a joint venture called Menter Newydd, which means "New Venture" in Welsh, to construct the Wylfa Newydd plant. Along with Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, (Wilmington, North Carolina) (Hitachi-GE), the joint venture also includes the U.K. arms of Bechtel Corporation (San Francisco, California) and Japanese engineering group, JGC Corporation (TYO:1963) (Yokohama, Japan). Horizon said that, combined, the partners have been involved in the delivery of more than 170 nuclear power stations.

"This is an important step in any large, complex infrastructure project, and it adds to Wylfa Newydd's growing momentum," said Duncan Hawthorne, Horizon chief executive officer. "The depth and breadth of expertise Hitachi Nuclear Energy Europe, Bechtel and JGC bring to the Menter Newydd venture will help us ensure the timely delivery of our project, which will be vital for meeting the U.K.'s energy gap and boosting the local economy in north Wales for decades to come."

Wylfa Newydd has a proposed generating capacity of 2,600- megawatts (MW) and will use Hitachi's Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (UK ABWR) reactors, which were cleared by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to move to the final step of Generic Design Assessment (GDA) and should be completed by the end of 2017. The project is expected to kick- off in mid-2019 and be commissioned in mid-2025. Horizon also has plans to build a bigger nuclear plant, Oldbury II, in Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire, England, with a capacity of 3,900 MW.

Hitachi's Malcolm Twist, project director for Menter Newydd, added: "This is a very strong team. All the partners are proven at the highest level, and I'm delighted we've established the balance of expertise to safely deliver for Horizon, on-cost and on-schedule. We expect to begin firming up relationships with our main sub-contractors --many of them British--very soon."

Hitachi has expressed concerns regarding the financial doubt looming over the Hinkley Point C nuclear project, which is being developed by Électricité de France S.A. (EPA:EDF) (Paris, France). Despite have reached an agreement with the U.K. government over the strike price paid for power produced by the plant, EDF has repeatedly put off making a final investment decision. The company has pledged to make that decision in September.

In a recent Industrial Info news report, Hitachi warned that it would not go ahead with plans to build Wylfa Newydd unless it could secure a viable financial agreement with the U.K. government. The company cited the protracted and difficult negotiations between the government and EDF over the Hinkley project. For additional information, see February 5, 2016, article - Hitachi is Nervous over Planned Nuclear Plant in Wales.

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