He also said that at Hinkley Point, EDF plans to build the same model EPR as in Flamanville, not the simplified “New Model” EPR it is now working on with Areva.
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Flamanville “will be late and will cost more than predicted but it remains the answer” to EDF’s goals, Levy said at a news conference in Paris Thursday.
The planned new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset has been hit by another setback, with its developer EDF admitting the project may be further delayed.
The launch is now set for “the fourth quarter of 2018”, said EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Levy, of the showcase project being built with atomic energy giant Areva which has faced fresh technical problems in the past few months. The 2023 completion date ties in with the date by which stringent air emissions regulations will have forced the majority of coal-fired power stations to close.
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “The UK Government and EDF are continuing to work together to finalise the project”. “The deal must represent value for money and is subject to approval by ministers”.
“Energy secretary Amber Rudd needs to use her ministerial position to press potential investors for a quick decision on the necessary future investment, so that EDF can make a final investment decision before Christmas”.
According to The Telegraph, EDF has said that the facility would no longer begin generating power in 2023 as originally planned.
EDF and the United Kingdom government unveiled in October 2013 the plan to build the two Hinkley Point reactors over 10 years at a cost of about 16 billion pounds ($24.4 billion).
Costs of nuclear are hard to compare from one country to another, but the gulf between projected costs in China and the United Kingdom is indisputable. But it is also partly because state-run nuclear enterprises can borrow at very low or even zero rates of interest.
France’s world renowned prowess in the nuclear power industry has taken another blow after officials announced this week, yet another delay to the launch of its next generation reactor, that is fast becoming a costly calamity.
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Both France and Britain have chosen the EPR design to replace their older nuclear reactors.
