CONFERENCE REPORT | NIA UK needs nuclear
The Nuclear Industry Association’s annual conference in December highlighted the scale and urgency of the need for new build, with speakers calling for reform of planning and new models for financing. Jeremy Gordon reports
ONLY ONE UK NUCLEAR POWER plant of any kind that is operating today will still be in operation in 2050. That will be Sizewell B — if it is subject to a successful long term operation programme. In the meantime, Britain needs to build the equivalent of four times its current electricity sector, bringing on about 10GWe of clean power capacity each year, every year, from 2025 until it meets the net zero deadline of 2050. That is equivalent to three Hinkley Point Cs per year, or 720 of the largest available wind turbines. The chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, Tim
Jeremy Gordon
Independent communications consultant at Fluent in Energy
Stone, painted this picture of the pace and scale of the development needed in the energy sector in his opening remarks to the association’s Nuclear 2021 conference in London on 2 December. He concluded that coming decades were “about collaboration, not competition” between clean energy sources because there is simply so much to do. It is technically very true that a range of energy sources should be used to improve the reliability of any country’s energy system, and to reach such huge goals. It also helps support these generous statements that the current UK government is resolutely pro-nuclear and continuously ramping up investment. The atmosphere at Nuclear 2021 was one of positivity and resolve to meet these targets, mixed with a certain amount of wonder as to the future of UK nuclear. Should it achieve even one quarter of what is being asked of it, the nuclear sector would be almost unrecognisable. Between today’s status and an expanded future remain a number of serious hurdles, however. The process of getting to a final investment decision is “outrageous” said Stone. There is so much paperwork, he said, that the planning consent system is “not rational” and “not serving the interests of voters” whether it be for a large reactor or a 5MWe wind farm. Barnaby Wharton of RenewableUK agreed that “We can’t do what we need to do under the
current regime.” And this is one of the reasons, said Guy Newey, the head of insight at the Energy Systems Catapult, that he thinks there is only a 10% chance of meeting the UK’s current carbon budgets. Action is needed on all fronts, from reform of the system granting development consent orders (DCOs), to cleaning up the carbon emissions of the supply chains that supply steel, and especially concrete, to construction projects. The ‘supply chains’ for skilled workers also need to be upgraded, the conference heard, while there is difficult new policy needed to provoke behaviour changes in energy consumers. How is all this going to happen? “The most important
factor is the government,” said Newey. Industry itself is already doing a lot. There are 6500 people working on site at Hinkley Point C, which celebrated the lift of a 575t containment ring at unit 2 in November. It is noteworthy that this was completed 25% more quickly than the equivalent for HPC 1, and that this was achieved while working through a pandemic. This acceleration was put down to the strategy of replication, the next step in which is the construction of Sizewell C, most of which is to be identical to Hinkley from the ground up, said Julia Pyke, the company’s Head of Financing for Sizewell C. Pyke was firm about Sizewell C’s prospects. “We can ‘get on with it’,” she said, “once we have the necessary consents,” which are expected in the first half of 2022. This will be the first nuclear project under the new Regulated Asset Base (RAB) scheme, through which a small surcharge on consumers’ bills will be used to partially fund construction, thus reducing the need to borrow money and therefore the cost of the project overall. When the bill enabling this was tabled in November, it was said it would save some £30 billion ($40 billion) across the lifetime of the power plant. Pyke said RAB means, “We can size the fleet to need,
rather than sizing it to one-off financing deals,” which stands as one way that clean energy construction can accelerate in future and meet more of the UK’s long-term goals.
Above: Julia Pyke was fi rm about the prospects for Sizewell C Photo credit: Grégoire Bernardi
28 | January 2022 |
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The role of China in Sizewell C remains unclear after more than 18 months of speculation that the UK government would prefer a more politically independent solution. Through China General Nuclear (CGN) the country has a 20% share in Sizewell C, a stake which Zhu Minhong, Chief Executive of CGN UK, noted was “endorsed by the UK government”. Zhu made overtures to the audience that CGN would like “to see how we can work together to explore cooperation opportunities to strengthen the UK supply chain.” He pointed to CGN’s six units under construction in China, wondering aloud how CGN can help UK manufacturers to qualify to supply high value components to for Bradwell B, the new-build project which they own 100%. CGN continues to support EDF Energy in developing the Sizewell C project towards final investment decision, said
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