Hinkley Point

EDF Nuclear Deal With U.K. Would Be Reviewed by EU, Almunia Says

Sunday, September 15, 2013

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.

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Davey woos China over nuclear plants

Sunday, September 8, 2013

ED DAVEY, the energy secretary, will travel to Beijing this month to lay the groundwork for a sweeping new partnership that could lead to Chinese-designed nuclear reactors being built in Britain.

The trip is the latest sign of the government's desperation to find backers for its troubled £200bn low-carbon overhaul of the energy industry. Last week Michael Fallon, Davey's No2, signed a memorandum of understanding to co-operate on civil power with Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear monopoly.

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New nuclear – nearly

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

As the FT reported on Friday, negotiations on the terms for new nuclear have advanced and there is increasing optimism that a deal can be done. The meeting between David Cameron and Francois Hollande in Paris two weeks ago amounted to a declaration of agreement in principle. Just three issues remain to be resolved.

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Centrica stokes energy fears by revealing EDF nuclear timescale has doubled

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Centrica has ratcheted up fears over Britain’s energy security by warning that its rival EDF will take twice as long as originally planned to build the first of a new generation of nuclear power stations.

The British Gas owner abandoned its 20pc stake in the £14bn project at Hinkley Point in February, opting instead to give £500m back to shareholders and invest in gas in North America.

Sir Roger Carr, Centrica chairman, told its AGM on Monday that since it first considered the project the price had “rocketed hugely”, adding: “Nuclear is not a cheap option.”

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EDF Energy chief ready to quit if Hinkley Point deal collapses

Monday, May 6, 2013

The chief executive of EDF Energy will leave Britain if the French company's £14 billion Hinkley Point reactor project collapses.

Vincent de Rivaz, the longest-serving boss of Britain's Big Six energy companies, has staked his credibility on getting the plan to build Britain's first new reactors for decades off the ground.

However, the chances of the project going ahead are receding, with EDF Energy and the Government in a stand-off over the level of subsidies - funded by levies on consumers' bills - that the company will receive.

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Twitter row after Oettinger dubs UK nuclear plans ‘Soviet’

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

A prominent clean energy campaigner has been banned from the European Energy Forum after tweeting remarks made by the EU’s energy commissioner describing the UK’s plan to hand out long-term contracts to nuclear companies as “Soviet”.

Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger’s putdown of the €16.5-billion British plan will likely be met with furrowed brows in London, where the 35-40-year contracts have proved controversial to some because of their length, nature and the scale of the subsidy involved.

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EDF Energy to cut jobs to control cost of building nuclear power station

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

EDF energy is cutting scores of jobs to control costs at the site of its proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset. The company is in the middle of difficult negotiations with ministers over the level of public subsidy the new reactors will receive over the next 40 years but insisted the project is not being mothballed and that it is not "holding a gun to the government's head".

The company has already spent £800m on developing the £14bn project and lost its junior partner when Centrica pulled out in February. "As part of good project management, and to control costs, EDF Energy has taken steps to refocus its activities at its Hinkley Point C project," said a spokeswoman. "This reflects its priorities ahead of securing the financing necessary for the project."

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Energy security 'at risk' if ministers fail to seal EDF nuclear deal

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Britain's energy security will be put at risk and future generations left to suffer with higher bills if ministers fail to agree a deal with EDF Energy to build Britain’s first new nuclear plant in a generation, the industry’s main representative body has claimed.

In the starkest warning yet over the £14bn Hinkley Point project, Lord Hutton, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, argues that failure would undermine Britain’s credibility with investors and threaten other projects across the energy sector.

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EDF, U.K. Unlikely to Meet End-March Deadline on Nuclear Subsidy -Sources

Friday, March 29, 2013

French electricity company Electricite de France SA and the British government are unlikely to meet a deadline at the end of March to agree on subsidies that would allow the construction of new nuclear power plants in the U.K., people familiar with the matter said.

The people said in recent days that although discussions are still ongoing, they aren't intensive and neither side appeared to be willing to make any compromises.

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British nuclear support plans flout EU rules - lawyers

Thursday, March 21, 2013

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's plans to reward nuclear plant operators through fixed prices for low-carbon energy are illegal under existing EU rules and efforts to adapt them are likely to draw opposition from other member states, EU and legal sources said.

Britain plans to reform its electricity market to fix a minimum price for nuclear, wind and solar-generated power, which is carbon free.

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