Nuclear power in Europe

The European Commission is divided over state-aid rules for energy and the environment ahead of a debate to be held in Strasbourg next week (Tuesday 8 October). The Commission is preparing guidance for member states in a bid to solve inconsistencies that have plagued two areas: feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, and state subsidies for nuclear power plants. A draft version of the guidance will be issued by the end of the year, with a view to adoption in 2014.

The nuclear industry wants European Union rules changed so that member states can provide direct state aid for building nuclear power plants. But member states and Commission departments are split on the issue. Several member states – including France, the Czech Republic and the UK – want the Commission to relax state-aid rules so they can use environmental subsidies to fund nuclear plants, seeing such a policy as part of a ‘low-carbon' approach. But other countries, including Germany and Austria, are adamantly opposed to nuclear being on the same footing as renewables when it comes to environmental subsidies.

PRAGUE, Sept 25 (Reuters) - CEZ is taking a wait-and-see approach to new investment as low power prices pressure energy companies and will scale back renewable plans due to an uncertain regulatory landscape, the Czech utility's chief strategy officer said.

Pavel Cyrani, also a CEZ board member, told the Reuters Eastern Europe Investment summit on Wednesday that a cautious approach was necessary to allow central Europe's biggest utility to remain healthy in current tough market conditions.

Electricite de France SA’s deal with the U.K. to build the nation’s first new nuclear plant in two decades will be probed by the European Union once an agreement is struck and regulators are informed, the EU’s antitrust chief said.

“The U.K. government has announced to us that they will notify in the coming months a program linked with investments in nuclear energy, in new plants,” Joaquin Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner, said in the margins of a conference in Florence, Italy. “Once this notification will take place we will need to assess if this scheme, this program complies or not” with the EU’s rules.

The Finnish power group Fennovoima has selected the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom to build its nuclear reactor in Pyhäjoki, northern Finland.

Fennovoima said on Tuesday that it will propose to its shareholders that a deal with Rosatom be signed by the end of this year, with the Russian firm taking a 34 percent stake in the project.