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Wylfa is one of the two sites where Horizon, now owned by Hitachi, hopes to build a reactor
Japanese-owned Westinghouse has come out fighting and reiterated a desire to build its AP1000 nuclear reactor on British shores – despite the setback of losing the deal to do so with Horizon Nuclear Power.
Westinghouse lost out on the chance to build the AP1000 here when the German utilities behind the Horizon Nuclear Power consortium pulled out of the project. RWE npower and E.on, Horizon’s owners, sold the venture when nuclear power fell out of favour in Germany following the Fukushima disaster.
Horizon was subsequently bought by Japan’s Hitachi, which hopes to build its own advanced boiling water reactor at the sites owned by Horizon in Anglesey, Wales, and Oldbury, Gloucestershire. Hitachi will now need to take the design through the government’s generic design assessment (GDA) process that allows new reactor designs to be built – the majority of which has already been undertaken for the AP1000 by Westinghouse. Only French rival Areva, which aims to build new reactors for EDF on the former British Energy sites, has completed the GDA.
Despite losing out on the deal, Danny Roderick, new president and chief executive officer at Westinghouse, said his company continued to enjoy strong relationships with British engineering firms such as Rolls-Royce and Sheffield Forgemasters. “We haven’t wavered in our commitment: we don’t think it’s a sprint, it’s a marathon,” he said. “You have to have the ability to ride through not just the political cycles but the financial cycles.”
Nuclear new build will not advance while EDF and the government negotiate on the level of subsidy – or “strike price” – that consumers will pay for electricity from new nuclear power stations.
Asked if the protracted negotiations over the level of nuclear industry subsidy would be going more smoothly if Westinghouse were involved, Roderick said: “Of course. The whole world is interested in the setting of the strike price because it means opening a gate you can drive through.” If the subsidy was too low, some companies would not be able to participate in new build, he said. “But anything that Areva’s European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) can get through, we can get through too – and still at great value for UK taxpayers.”
Westinghouse would be looking to exploit opportunities at existing nuclear development sites – such as those being put forward at Moorside by NuGen in Cumbria – as well as at other, as yet unidentified, sites, said Roderick. “We think we can give the EPR [rival reactor design] a couple of years’ headstart and still finish ahead of them,” he claimed.
He said French utility EDF’s relationship with Areva had effectively drastically cut down on present opportunities in the UK. “We have completed all but the final phase of the GDA, and that last phase could actually see a plant put down at NuGen, if that's where we are successful.
“We are also hoping that additional sites will come onto the marketplace.” Roderick speculated that if it became clear that Areva could not build on all sites owned by EDF, then the government could open these up again to other firms. Speaking ahead of a meeting with energy minister Michael Fallon, Roderick joked: “Maybe I can talk him into it.”
Ed Davey, the coalition energy secretary, has gone on the record recently to say that he is seeking the best deal possible for the British public over the strike price.
But some industry experts believe that the government may privately be preparing to walk away from the EDF-Areva Hinkley Point C project. They argue that while there would have been a furore over such a move when hype over new build was at its highest, expectations among the industry and public are much lower today – making a U-turn possible.