Michelle ThompsonAccording to the Energy Department, a facility in Wales, owned by Hitachi, is one of the options being evaluated.
The UK government has stated that it is striving to make sites accessible for additional nuclear power plants, following reported talks with the owner of the Wylfa facility in north Wales.
Hitachi owns the site on Anglesey, also known as Ynys Môn, but its future has been unknown since 2020, when the Japanese firm publicly abandoned its own efforts to build a new reactor there after failing to reach an agreement with the government on financial support.
The government is in early talks with Hitachi to acquire the land, with the goal of finding a partner to build a nuclear power plant there.
Despite substantial delays and massive cost overruns on current projects at Hinkley Point C in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk, the government has recently committed to increasing nuclear power generation and launching Great British Nuclear.
In January, the government announced plans for Britain’s largest nuclear power expansion in 70 years, with reactors capable of producing 24 gigawatts by 2050. This would meet a fourth of the UK’s energy consumption while emitting zero carbon dioxide.
Those ambitions will be dependent on getting nuclear projects forward on the limited number of sites deemed eligible for new reactor construction.
The Wylfa site has been valued at £200 million, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the talks between Hitachi and GB Nuclear.
Wylfa is home to the UK’s last Magnox nuclear reactor, which shutdown in 2015, making it an ideal location for a large reactor or a small modular reactor (SMR). The government expects that SMRs will make nuclear power plants easier and cheaper to develop.
Companies and institutions in the British nuclear industry announced on Monday that they would undertake a recruiting drive to ensure that there were enough staff to support the government’s efforts.
The Destination Nuclear campaign stated that the number of staff needed to double over the next 20 years to support a potential quadrupling in output.
According to the Nuclear Industry Association, a lobby group, the UK civil nuclear supply chain employs approximately 64,500 people, with thousands more working in defence.
It is supported by the French state-owned energy business EDF, engineers such as Atkins, Jacobs, and Laing O’Rourke, and corporations involved in the UK’s nuclear weapons and submarine programs such as Babcock, Rolls-Royce, and BAE Systems.
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero stated, “We have ended the stop-start approach to nuclear and recently launched a roadmap outlining the sector’s largest expansion in 70 years, simplifying regulation and shortening the process for building new power stations – meaning cleaner, cheaper, and more secure energy in the long run.”
“Wylfa is one of several proposed sites for civil nuclear programs. While no decisions on locations have been made, we are collaborating with Great British Nuclear to facilitate access to potential sites for new nuclear plants.
A representative for Hitachi said: “We own two of the premier locations for nuclear new-build in the UK and we will continue to speak with interested parties about the future for the sites.”
