The £24.5bn power station project, the first new United Kingdom nuclear reactor in a generation, is expected to attract investment from China’s CGN and CNNC, which will take a minority stake in Hinkley Point C (to join Points A and B).
Advertisement
EDF on Wednesday announced the blockbuster deal, signed in the presence of Xi and British Prime Minister David Cameron, in a statement as London rolled out the red carpet to woo Chinese investors.
The Chinese President is expected to sign a deal expected to cover nearly 30 per cent of the cost of a nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, as well as other deals, a sign of growing Chinese influence on the nuclear industry.
The two leaders closed several deals totaling about $62 billion, including one allowing Beijing to make its first significant investment in a Western nuclear power plant.
“Hinkley Point C and successive nuclear projects will guarantee the United Kingdom the reliable, secure low-carbon electricity it needs in the future”, said EDF Energy CEO Vincent de Rivaz.
EDF and CGN also confirmed they would work together on two further plants: at Sizewell in Suffolk, where CGN will fund 20pc of development costs; and at Bradwell in Essex, where CGN plans to use its own reactor design and will fund two-thirds of the development costs.
But critics say the £92.50 per megawatt hour of power that the government has guaranteed to pay for Hinkley’s output for 35 years is double what consumers now pay.
Prime Minister David Cameron is being met by President Xi Jinping afterwards, on the next day of his United Kingdom state visit.
EDF Energy said that it would complete the long-delayed final investment for Hinkley Point C by the end of this year.
Q| How much energy will Hinkley Point C generate?
“I’m deeply concerned about the costs for households, and particularly vulnerable groups like pensioners”. It will be Britain’s first nuclear plant in three decades and the most expensive atomic energy station ever.
Government officials have dismissed such concerns, saying that CGN’s minority control in the Hinkley and Sizewell facilities will limit its access to critical information and that the government in London would strictly regulate China’s involvement in the country’s nuclear power industry.
Hilton said: “This is one of the worst national humiliations we’ve seen since we went cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund in the 1970s”.
Advertisement
More than GBP30bn worth of deals involving China and great britain are likely to be hit through the four-day visit. The deals could create more than 3,900 jobs in Britain, according to Cameron. U.K.-China cooperation on a high-speed rail line through the country’s center also will be expanded.
