nuclear-news

EDF’s new UK plants should be negotiated as one, French energy minister says.

EDF’s two UK nuclear construction projects at Hinkley Point and Sizewell
should be negotiated as a single financial venture, France’s energy
minister has urged, to prevent the French energy giant shouldering
significant cost overruns.

Marc Ferracci said he had held discussions on
the projects with Britain’s energy minister Ed Miliband on Thursday, on
the sidelines of an energy security summit in London. “France and EDF are
very committed to deliver the projects but we have to find a way to
accelerate them and we have to find a way to consolidate the financial
schemes of both projects,” Ferracci told the FT.

France has been lobbying
the UK government to help EDF with the finances of Hinkley Point C in
Somerset for more than a year. It argues that the French state-owned
electricity operator should not be left on the hook for cost overruns that
have taken the total bill to as high as £46bn. EDF — which has also
experienced long delays on other projects using the same reactor technology
in Finland and France — has warned that the first of two reactors at
Hinkley Point C could be delayed to as late as 2031, which would be six
years later than its original target.

The French company has a smaller
equity stake in the Sizewell C project in Suffolk, which it is also
developing. Ferracci denied that the French government was seeking to use
Sizewell as “leverage” to help bail it out of financial difficulties at
Hinkley.

 FT 25th April 2025,
https://www.ft.com/content/0c50a553-3376-42d8-8ac5-c8aa84d2e78d

April 27, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France