Engineering news
RWE and E.ON partnership, Horzon Nuclear Power, has detailed their plans to build two nuclear power plants in the UK, with the first ready by 2020.
Horizon Nuclear Power, a joint venture between the two German energy firms, has proposed building its first reactor at Wylfa on Anglesey in North Wales and a second power station at the Oldbury-on-Severn site in Gloucestershire.
The firm announced that given the “right market conditions”, the Wylfa reactor could be commissioned by 2020, with a planning application for Oldbury submitted after construction is under way at the North Wales site.
The company said that each development would deliver up to 5,000 jobs during the construction period and 800 permanent jobs when completed.
Each site is planned to have a capacity of 3,300MW, which would squeeze in either two 1600MW Areva EPR reactors or three 1000MW Westinghouse AP1000. Both designs are being assessed by the Health and Safety Executive’s Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process, which is due to be completed by June 2011.
Horizon is in talks with both reactor developers, and said it will choose the one it likes best at the end of this year for the Wylfa site, before the GDA process has completed.
It said: “We will select a vendor this year because we have to hit our timetable, and be ready to make the planning application. The decision will be before, but it will still depend on the GDA approval.”
A programme of detailed studies and formal consultations will also be done at both sites before planning applications are made in 2012.
Wylfa currently hosts two 490MW Magnox reactors which have been operational since 1971. These are due to be switched off at the end of this year, because keeping them on was “uneconomic”, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority decided in 2006. Oldbury also has two Magnox reactors with a capacity of 600MW and these are due to be switched off “mid-2011”.
Horizon’s rival nuclear developer is French firm EDF, which currently runs most of the UK’s current fleet of nuclear reactors. It has said that it plans to have its first new nuclear power station operating by 2017 at Hinkley Point in Essex.