nuclear-news

UK Treasury confident Sizewell C nuclear power investors will soon be‘teed up’ – crunch time for Sizewell.

 Ministers will decide whether to proceed with delayed
Suffolk scheme in June spending review. A senior Treasury minister has said
he is confident private financing for the Sizewell C nuclear power station
will be “teed up” in time for a final investment decision in June over
whether to proceed with the delayed project.

Darren Jones, chief secretary
to the Treasury, told the Financial Times that the crunch point for the
planned project in Suffolk was coming in just 10 weeks, at the time of the
government’s three-year spending review. “We have to make the final
investment decision [FID] which we will do at the spending review,” he
said. “FID will be taken in June.” Jones added: “You wouldn’t take
FID unless you’ve got all of your investors teed up. We will do.”

The UK government and French energy group EDF, the initial backers of Sizewell
C, have been trying to raise billions of pounds from investors and had
previously hoped to reach a final decision on investment last year. But the
process has dragged on and the price tag has soared since its £20bn
estimate given as recently as 2020.

Government officials and industry
executives expect Sizewell C will get billions of pounds of funding from
British taxpayers alongside investment from sovereign wealth funds and
institutional investors. The government has been negotiating with investors
including Centrica, Emirates Nuclear Energy Company, Amber Infrastructure
Group and Schroders Greencoat. They may not invest and ministers could yet
balk at the huge costs of the project. But Jones said the government had
already released a couple of billion pounds for the current year for
enabling works at the site.

 FT 1st April 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/4a889ad7-6d41-47a9-a946-c2535ae2aaa6

April 3, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK