nuclear-news

Japan joins the frenzy to sell uneconomic nuclear power to UK

Westinghouse to buy 50 per cent stake in NuGen By Guy Chazan, Jim Pickard and George Parker   15 Dec 2013, Westinghouse, the Japanese-owned engineering group, will announce within days that it is buying a big stake in one of the UK’s three nuclear-building consortiums .

Westinghouse, which is owned by Toshiba, is expected to announce it is acquiring a 50 per cent share in NuGen, which owns the right to build a nuclear plant near Sellafield in Cumbria….

Westinghouse will buy the stake from Iberdrola, the Spanish utility, which is leaving the venture. France’s GDF Suez will hold on to its 50 per cent share.

Ministers will welcome the deal as a further sign of progress on the UK’s nuclear programme . The agreement comes two months after the government clinched a deal with French state-owned group EDF to build the £16bn Hinkley Point C atomic power plant in Somerset. Chinese state-owned group CGN is expected to take a stake in that project.

A deal with Westinghouse would mean that all three nuclear projects in the UK have lined up investors from Asia……

EDF is scheduled to build plants at Hinkley and Sizewell in Suffolk, while Horizon, a venture owned by Japanese group Hitachi, is to build at Wylfa in North Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire, and NuGen at Moorside in Cumbria.

The government is introducing generous support for nuclear developers. It guaranteed EDF a price of £92.50 per megawatt hour, roughly double the current price of power, for the electricity it will generate at Hinkley.

But that deal will face regulatory scrutiny in Brussels. The European Commission is expected to announce this week that it is launching an investigation into whether the EDF deal breaches EU state aid rules. A ruling is not expected before next summer at the earliest……. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/636fffde-658b-11e3-a27d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2neXn7bjB

December 16, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, marketing, UK