The British government may take a £5bn (€5.7bn) direct stake in the £16bn (€18.3bn) Wylfa Newydd nuclear plant project on Anglesey, North Wales (United Kingdom). An initial agreement has been reached with the Japanese conglomerate Hitachi but no final decision has been made so far. Even though the project represents the next generation of nuclear reactors in the UK, alternatives such as solar and wind power are putting pressure on it and the British government has always been reluctant to take stakes in new nuclear projects to avoid exposing public finances to the risk of budget overruns.
Horizon Nuclear Power plans to invest £19bn (€22bn) in the construction of the Wylfa Newydd nuclear project, which would consist of up to four Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWRs) with a combined capacity of around 5,400 MW on the site of the former 980 MW Wylfa nuclear power plant. The units would be the first commercial boiling water reactors in the UK and could be commissioned as early as 2025.
The British Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the Environment Agency (EA) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) endorsed the project in December 2017. The ONR has granted the Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC), while the NRW and the EA have granted the reactor a Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA). The reactor has secured a Generic Design Assessment (GDA) and is now suitable for construction in the United Kingdom. So far, the guaranteed power price from the plant is expected to reach approximately £75-£77/MWh (€85.6-€87.9/MWh).
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