Hitachi Secures Welsh Nuclear Contract

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - Work is set to start on the construction of a new nuclear plant in Wales following the signing of a major contract between project owner Horizon Nuclear Power (Gloucester, England) and Japanese nuclear reactor manufacturer, Hitachi Limited (OTC:HTHIY) (Tokyo, Japan).

The Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) contract sets the framework for design work to be undertaken for the proposed new build project at Wylfa. The company has plans for a plant with a generating capacity of up to 3,300-megawatts (MW) to be built adjacent to the existing Wylfa nuclear plant, which began operating in January 1961. Wylfa had a generating capacity of 980 MW from its two 490 MW Magnox nuclear reactors, but Wylfa Reactor 2 was disconnected from the U.K. electricity grid last year, after 41 years of service.

In August last year, the existing nuclear reactor at Wylfa 1 was granted permission by U.K. government to continue generating electricity up until 2014, four years after it was supposed to be shut down. The decision was made after the successful transfer of partially used fuel from Wylfa Reactor 2 to Reactor 1. For additional information, see August 17, 2012, article - Wylfa Nuclear Plant Gets New Lifeline.

Horizon's Chief Operating Officer Alan Raymant said: "This is a multi-million pound contract stretching over several years, and represents another major step forward in our project. It will support our site development work, allow us to assess the best construction timetable for Wylfa, feed into our public consultations and support the supply chain development strategy. Wylfa is an excellent site for a new nuclear power station, and with the FEED contract in place we will be able to work with Hitachi-GE to develop plans to bring this project to life."

Hidetoshi Takehara, President of Hitachi-GE, commented: "We are delighted to have signed this contract with Horizon, it is a further step forward in the early phase work towards site readiness. The FEED contract puts in place the commercial arrangements under which we will work up site-specific design plans for Horizon's project at Wylfa."

Horizon was a joint venture formed by the German utilities RWE AG (OTC:RWEOY) (Essen, Germany) and E.ON AG (PINK:EONGY) (Dusseldorf, Germany). However, the companies decided to exit the U.K. nuclear space last year despite owning the rights to develop up to 6,000 MW of new nuclear projects at Wylfa in Anglesey and Oldbury in Gloucestershire. For additional information, see March 30, 2012 article - RWE and E.ON Drop U.K. Nuclear Power Joint Venture.

Hitachi announced its entry into the U.K. nuclear sector last October when it bought the Horizon Nuclear Power joint venture for €863 million ($1.1 billion). For additional information, see October 31, 2012 article - RWE and E.ON Sell U.K. Nuclear Venture.

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