Last year, EDF warned that the cost of building Somerset’s Hinkley Point nuclear power station costs could rise to £32bn
Estimates of costs to build Hinkley Point C in south-west England have spiralled since EDF started the project in 2016
EDF and its state-owned Chinese partner CGN were asked in the second half of 2023 to make “voluntary” additional equity payments under a compensation mechanism for cost overruns, as “the project’s total financing needs exceed the contractual commitment of the shareholders”, EDF said. But it added that the “probability that CGN will not fund the project after it has reached its committed equity cap is high”.
Luc Rémont, EDF’s chief executive, said he was confident of persuading the British government to help finance two flagship nuclear reactor projects in the UK, as the French group reported a €12.9bn writedown on its delayed Hinkley Point C plant (Financial Times).
On February 28th, Chris Huhne, former UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary, wrote: ‘Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing bill for EDF failings’
“I was astonished and saddened by your report that both Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, and Luc Rémont, chief executive of EDF, are pressing the UK government to help with the cost overrun at Hinkley Point C, the EDF nuclear plant under construction in the UK . . .
“I will save French blushes by not quoting all the promises that were made by the company about the low cost of its nuclear energy (a fraction even of what was ultimately agreed) . . .
“A clear condition of the Hinkley project was that EDF would be entirely and solely responsible for the construction costs and risks, and the UK government would merely guarantee a price (subsidy-free, taking account of carbon costs) for the electricity output once the plant started. Nothing could be more unambiguous either legally, politically or morally . . .
“Any British minister who now goes back on that arrangement would be betraying their responsibility to the exchequer, and would be a legitimate target for the public accounts committee . . .
“If EDF is unable or unwilling to complete the project in time to avail itself of the price guaranteed under the contract for difference, there are legal processes of liquidation which should be used to find an alternative buyer at the market value for the unfinished assets”.
On Friday EDF said: “Under the worst-case scenario Hinkley could now cost £47.9bn to complete, compared with an initial £18bn estimate in 2016”.
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Nuclear Industries 