Japanese conglomerate Hitachi has decided to scrap the £16bn (€18bn) Wylfa Newydd nuclear power plant project in Anglesey, in North Wales (United Kingdom) due to economic reasons. The company has not been able to reach an agreement with the government over various options about how the
British government might support the project including potential for equity and debt investments. Hitachi will post JPY300bn (£2.1bn or €2.4bn) of impairment loss and related expenses in fiscal 2018 from axing the project.
The Wylfa Newydd project would have comprised two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWRs) with a combined capacity of 2,760 MWe on the site of the former 980 MWe Wylfa nuclear power plant. The project was endorsed by the British Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the Environment Agency (EA) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) in December 2017.
This is a major blow for the British nuclear industry and for the country's energy policy. Hitachi becomes the second company in two months to scrap a major nuclear project after Toshiba decided to withdraw from the 3.8 GW Moorside nuclear power plant project in West Cumbria in November 2018. The abandonment of the Moorside and Wylfa Newydd projects means that the government has a huge gap to fill in a decade’s time after old nuclear and coal plants have closed. The two projects were slated to deliver about 15% of the UK's power demand (7% each) and this announcement is likely to dent the development of new power plants in the country.