nuclear-news

By David Coates
Published on Friday 28 September 2012 09:20

The bidding war to buy Horizon Nuclear Power, a group which owns two sites earmarked for a pair of reactors in North Wales and Gloucestershire, has stepped up with Japanese giant Hitachi entering the fray.

It is up against consortiums led by reactor-building group Westinghouse, backed by the financial muscle of China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corp, and rival reactor firm Areva and China’s Guangdong Nuclear Power Group Company.

A successful bid for Horizon by Westinghouse would see the contract for decades of fuel for the new reactors head to Springfields Fuels factory in Salwick, near Preston, which employs nearly 1,000 people.

The group has also vowed to ramp up its headquarters on Matrix Park at Buckshaw Village, near Leyland, if it is successful in building its AP1000 reactor across the UK.

The Evening Post understands Hitachi has entered the battle having teamed up with Canadian company, SNC Lavalin.

On Friday, Mike Graham, national secretary of nuclear workers’ trade union, Prospect, said the battle to acquired Horizon had come down to a bidding war between China and Japan.

He said: “Whatever happens with financiers at the other side of the world could impact on jobs and investment in Central Lancashire where the European headquarters of Westinghouse are based along with their successful nuclear fuel manufacturing business at Salwick, near Preston.

“We do not know what the impact will be if the Westinghouse bid fails, if it succeeds then it could well mean further investment.

“The next three weeks are critical.”

In March, German utility companies, RWE and E.ON, put Horizon up for sale after a political shift in German saw it commit to an energy future led by renewable power in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima reactor in Japan.

Horizon owns the sites at Wylfa in Angelsey and Oldbury, Gloucestershire, which are among 11 sites across the UK earmarked for new nuclear reactors.

Both Westinghouse and Areva have been given the go-ahead to build their AP1000 and EPR reactors as part of the nuclear renaissance and are now fighting it out for the 11 sites.

Daniel Grosvenor, head of the nuclear team at Deloitte LLP in London, told Bloomberg: “Areva and Westinghouse were the technology suppliers bidding into Horizon in the first place and are already in the Generic Design Assessment process.

“The Hitachi group has some catching up to do.”

French-owned EDF Energy has already confirmed it will start work on building the Areva EPR at its sites, initially at Hinkley Point in Somerset, while Nugen – a consortium of Spanish energy group Ibedrola and French firm GDF Suez – has also targeted a site at Sellafield, Cumbria for a reactor.

http://www.newsrt.co.uk/news/battle-for-nuclear-work-825969.html

to balance the last paragraph

https://nuclear-news.net/2012/10/26/future-of-uk-nuclear-power-hangs-in-the-balance-says-edf-boss-guardian/