The Wylfa site on Anglesey “has everything” needed to house a new nuclear power station says the UK Energy Minister Greg Hands as a fund to support the sector is launched.
The £120 million Future Nuclear Enabling Fund is designed to unlock and accelerate new nuclear technologies while encouraging new players into the market.
It has been created to support the ambitious UK Government target to approve eight new reactors by 2030, as committed to in the British Energy Security Strategy in April.
This will provide targeted, competitively-allocated government grants which will help nuclear construction projects, including small modular reactors, to attract the private investment they need to help make them a reality.
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At Wylfa it is hoped it will help mean that the site – which housed a nuclear power station for over 40 years – will host a new generation plant after two failed attempts to develop on Anglesey.
Talks are ongoing and while US energy and engineering giants Westinghouse and Bechtel have been closely linked with taking on Wylfa from Hitachi the minister made clear no developers had been allocated to specific sites at this stage. He said there is interest from firms in the US, Korea and France.
UK Minister Mr Hands, who launched the fund at Wylfa with Secretary of State for BEIS Hon Kwasi Kwarteng, said: “The Wylfa site has enormous potential, it has everything one needs, it has got great access, is close to the coast and most importantly it has a really supportive local community and exceptionally supportive MP in Virginia Crosbie who has been on the front foot pushing Wylfa.
“There will be a process and our ambition is to build out to have 24GW by 2050, which will be 25% of our electricity, with eight rectors approved before the end of this decade. That is a big ambition but one we have to meet.”
He added: “I have met with Westinghouse and Bechtel and they are impressive with their APR1000 (reactor) technology, that is in a good place but it is too early to attach a specific developer to a specific site. Wylfa will be attractive to a number of operators and developers. There are an increasing number of developers that are out there - in the United States, Korea and our friends in France. There are plenty of developers interested in developing nuclear in the UK.
“The fund will help these technologies show what will be viable and competitive for the UK going forward.”
They are talking to Hitachi’s nuclear vehicle Horizon and learning lessons about what went wrong with the last bid to develop the site, where they failed to reach a suitable funding agreement with the Government.
Mr Hands added: “We have learnt lessons, how do we get in financiers and developers to come in and share some of the risk with the consumer. The Nuclear Financing Act is a really important step forward that will allow more institutional funds and pension funds, assets managers, to help finance things, which was the difficulty Hitachi faced with reference to Wylfa.
“I am very confident that Wylfa has a fantastic nuclear future with this Government.”
Ynys Môn MP Virginia Crosbie said: "This is a big day for Anglesey, where our ambitions to be the site for the next generation of cutting-edge nuclear power stations starts in earnest.
"One company, Bechtel, has already indicated it will bid for money from the fund to work up plans for Wylfa. Here we have a spade-ready site, a supportive population and the skills to achieve new nuclear power in as short a time frame as possible.
"Another piece of the jigsaw has been put in place by the UK government today for Wylfa to once again be a place where clean energy is generated.
"After a long campaign to get to this day, I am so excited the starting gun has been fired and that my work in parliament and in the corridors of power to make the case for Wylfa has borne fruit.
"I will continue to do all I can to ensure we get this power station and the jobs, investment and large-scale community benefit that comes with it for Ynys Môn. It’s not a given, but we are certainly moving in the right direction."
The Government has also now appointed Simon Bowen as the Industry Adviser to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) tasked with leading and helping to drive forward government proposals for a new Great British Nuclear vehicle.
This new body, announced last month in the British Energy Security Strategy, will be charged with helping nuclear projects through the development process and realising the government’s ambition of generating up to 24GW of nuclear-sourced energy by 2050.
Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “This new £120 million fund is the first of many steps to push forward our vision of a new fleet of UK nuclear stations as part of a British nuclear renaissance.
“By encouraging new industry players and greater competition into British nuclear, we will help cut development costs, bolster the UK’s energy security with clean, affordable, homegrown power, and create high-skilled jobs across the country.”
