“This agreement will be confirmed in an exchange of letters between the Government and EDF”.
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The price of the electricity, the parties involved and the future of United Kingdom nuclear all look the same.
Last year, China General Nuclear Power (CGN) agreed to acquire 33.5% stake in the project by investing €6bn through its new company General Nuclear International (GNI).
Britain gave the go-ahead yesterday for an £18 billion (S$32.4 billion) nuclear power plant, ending weeks of uncertainty that strained ties with China and France but also signalling a more cautious approach to foreign investment in critical infrastructure projects.
An EDF official said the changes requested by the United Kingdom government were minor and that there was no need for new negotiations.
He told parliament that the plant’s construction would create 26,000 jobs and it would guarantee 7 percent of Britain’s electricity needs for 60 years.
In the UK, EDF Energy CEO Vincent de Rivaz said EDF’s UK unit would take “the risk and responsibility to deliver Hinkley Point C and provide the UK with the reliable low carbon electricity it needs”.
For Hinkley Point C, which will be partly owned by China (it’s paying £6 billion of the proposed £18 billion construction cost), the United Kingdom government is preventing EDF from selling its controlling stake without “prior notification and agreement of ministers”.
Olivia Gippner, a fellow in EU-China relations at the London School of Economics, said the framework was aimed at China but “by introducing a general national security test rather than focusing only on Chinese investment, this is a very diplomatic solution”.
The government will also add a review of any deal for national security implications, and the revised terms mean that Britain will have a much greater say if EDF, the largely state-owned French company that is the main investor in the plant, wishes to sell its stake in the plant to a foreign buyer.
The plant, with two reactors, is due to open around 2023, becoming the first new nuclear plant in the U.K.in a generation, BBC News reports.
Olkiluoto in Finland and France’s Flamanville are the first two EPR power stations – meaning the technology remains new and unproven – and the technical problems experienced in both countries have not gone unnoticed by Hinkley Point C’s critics.
Unions, the CBI and the energy sector welcomed the decision, saying it was good news for jobs and for the future of the United Kingdom energy supply.
Since Prime Minister Theresa May took over from David Cameron, the announcement for Hinkley Points’ go ahead has been delayed while financial and security aspects were finalised.
Hinkley Point in Somerset, southwest England, is named among eight potential sites for building new nuclear power stations.
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John Sauven, Greenpeace executive director, said: “This decision is unlikely to be the grand finale to this summer’s political soap opera”.
