nuclear-news

  French energy giant EDF launches search for Hinkley Point finance after damning audit report

EDF Group’s chief executive Luc Rémont has hit
back at the national French auditor’s claims that the energy company
should delay its investment in UK nuclear power project Sizewell C.

He said the regulated asset base (RAB) model for financing the Suffolk nuclear
power station, where the cost of development is shared with the consumer,
should not be correlated with the refinancing of the Hinkley Point C
project in Somerset.

The French state-owned energy company has started a
search for financiers to help refinance the delayed project at Hinkley
Point C, following the French state auditor’s findings yesterday,
according to Rémont.

In October, the energy company issued £500m of
senior bonds to help finance investments in two nuclear reactors at the
site. Rémont said that the funding model for the Sizewell C nuclear power
project on the Suffolk coast “limits” EDF’s capital exposure.

The auditor’s report come a week after a letter was sent to the national
auditor in the UK, the National Audit Office, calling for a review of the
government’s spending assessment for Sizewell C. The campaign group
behind the letter raised concerns of rising costs at Hinkley Point C,
another nuclear power station being built by EDF, now estimated to be in
the region of £46 billion. The letter from Together Against Sizewell C
(TASC) followed a plea by Ecotricity founder Dale Vince, a Labour donor,
for the Treasury’s new Office for Value for Money to review plans to
develop the new nuclear power project in Suffolk.

 Energy Voice 15th Jan 2025 https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/565569/french-energy-giant-edf-launches-search-for-hinkley-point-finance-after-damning-audit-report/

January 19, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France, UK