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EDF starts pouring concrete at £18bn Hinkley Point nuclear power plant

Hinkley Point construction gets under way, EDF starts pouring concrete at £18bn nuclear power plant, 
Ft.com by: Andrew Ward, Energy Editor , 31 Mar 17, Construction has begun of the first permanent structures at the Hinkley Point nuclear power station in Somerset, marking an important step towards Britain’s first new nuclear plant since the 1990s. EDF, the French utility leading the £18bn project, said it had started pouring concrete after receiving its first go-ahead for construction work from Britain’s nuclear regulator………

Construction at Hinkley will last eight years if a target is met to be producing electricity from its two reactors by 2025. Similar projects involving EDF’s European Pressurised Reactor in France and Finland have been beset by delays and cost overruns. About 1,600 people are already working at the site and 3 million cubic metres of earth has been moved in preparation for what will be one of Europe’s biggest construction projects. Work is also under way on a jetty to which much of the construction material will be delivered by ship, a seawall to protect the site from the sea and on-site accommodation blocks for hundreds of workers………
The government promised EDF a price of £92.50 per megawatt hour of electricity generated by Hinkley, based on 2012 prices and rising with inflation for the 35-year duration of the contract. This is more than double current wholesale prices, although EDF points out that other new forms of power generation such as offshore wind also receive hefty subsidies. Another proposed nuclear plant, at Moorside in Cumbria, took a step forward on Thursday when UK regulators gave approval to the AP1000 reactors planned for the project. However, this came a day after Westinghouse, the Toshiba subsidiary which makes the AP1000, filed for bankruptcy protection in the US, increasing doubts over the viability of the Cumbrian project. https://www.ft.com/content/cdd0d904-154e-11e7-b0c1-37e417ee6c76

April 1, 2017 - Posted by | business and costs, UK

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