UK Approves Landmark £38 Billion Sizewell C Nuclear Plant
The British government will retain a minority stake of around 45%, while other investors include French state-owned Electricite de France SA, Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, Centrica Plc and Amber Infrastructure Group Ltd. The major backing from private investors in the project is seen by the government as a key victory as the UK tries to drive investment and economic growth.
'It is time to do big things and build big projects in this country again — and today we announce an investment that will provide clean, homegrown power to millions of homes for generations to come,' UK Energy Minister Ed Miliband said in a statement Tuesday.
It's a major milestone for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government to drive investment in low-carbon electricity supply to cut emissions and boost economic growth. EDF has said the two reactors in Suffolk on England's east coast will supply power to 6 million households for about 60 years.
Plans to develop Sizewell C go back more than a decade. Different UK governments have struggled to come up with a way to finance the project, before choosing a hybrid model of public and private capital. And since then, costs for new nuclear projects in the UK have soared.
Sizewell C is a copy of the other plant under construction in Britain — Hinkley Point C in Somerset. The latter has been repeatedly delayed, including from disruptions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The plant might not be completed until after 2030, and the price tag has more than doubled to over £40 billion.
Developers promise that Sizewell C can be built faster and more cheaply than its predecessor because of the efficiency of repetition.
--With assistance from Francois de Beaupuy.
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