U.K. Picks Wylfa for New Nuclear Power Plant

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The U.K. government has chosen Wylfa in Wales as the site for a new nuclear power plant.

The decision comes a couple of months after the government bought the site back for £160 million ($204 million) from GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy International (Wilmington, North Carolina), which officially abandoned plans for a nuclear power plant there in 2021. The government has been in talks with a number of international energy companies, most recently South Korea's Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Company Limited (KHNP) (Seoul), with regards to building the new plant. Details are scarce, but it is estimated to be similar in scale to the Hinkley Point C power station, currently under construction in Somerset and which will have a generating capacity of 3,300 megawatts (MW)--enough for 7% of the country's electricity needs. The government is also exploring building another nuclear power station, identical in scale to Hinkley, at Sizewell in Suffolk. The government's stated goals are to build up to eight new nuclear reactors as part of a sweeping energy strategy to strengthen its energy security in light of Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine. It is aiming to have 24 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power by 2050, three times more than now and representing up to 25% of total power.

"We are powering ahead with the biggest expansion of nuclear energy in 70 years," said U.K. Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Claire Coutinho. "Anglesey has a proud nuclear history and it is only right that, once again, it can play a central role in boosting the U.K.'s energy security. Wylfa would not only bring clean, reliable power to millions of homes -- it could create thousands of well-paid jobs and bring investment to the local area. The U.K. is delivering the biggest expansion to nuclear power in 70 years and suitable sites will be critical to meet ambitions to quadruple nuclear capacity by up to 24 GW by 2050. This will come from a mix of traditional large-scale power plants and small modular reactors (SMRs), which can be rolled out more quickly and at scale." She added: "Great British Nuclear aims to announce successful bidders for the small modular reactor competition by the end of this year."

Wylfa was originally home to a nuclear power plant built in the 1970s but shut down its last reactor in 2015. Before that, GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy International had been working on plans for a new plant there and another at Oldbury in South Gloucestershire, England, based on its advanced boiling water reactor. In 2019, plans for both plants bit the dust when GE-Hitachi suspended them indefinitely blaming lack of government support, and confirmed that it would take a loss of $2.77 billion already spent on the projects. For additional information, see January 28, 2019, article - Hitachi-GE Suspends Two U.K. Nuclear Projects.

Industrial Info is currently tracking the country's small modular reactor (SMR) plans, including the government's SMR competition, which has been delayed until the end of the year by the country's newly formed body, Great British Nuclear. Six companies are vying for funding: Electricite de France (EDF) (Paris, France), GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy International, Holtec International (Jupiter, Florida), NuScale Power Corporation (NYSE:SMR) (Portland, Oregon), Rolls-Royce (London, England) and Westinghouse Electric Company (Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania). Industrial Info reported recently that Rolls-Royce had scaled back plans to build an SMR-manufacturing plant in the U.K. The company has been critical about the government's slow progress on identifying suitable sites for projects. For additional information, see May 22, 2024, article - Rolls Royce Hits Brakes on U.K. SMR Plans.

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