Hinkley Point C Deal Is ‘Risky And Expensive’, Says National Audit Office Report

26 Jun (NucNet): The UK government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) deal for the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear station has locked consumers into a risky and expensive project with uncertain strategic and economic benefits, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO). The report, published on 23 June 2017, says when the BEIS finalised the deal in 2016 its value-for- money tests showed the economic case for Hinkley Point C was “marginal and subject to significant uncertainty”. The report found that the BEIS has not sufficiently considered the costs and risks of its deal for consumers. “It only considered the impact on bills up to 2030, which does not take account of the fact that consumers are locked into paying for Hinkley Point C long afterwards, ” the report says. It also did not conclude whether the forecast top-up payments are affordable.” UK-based EDF Energy is building two EPR units at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, southwest England. Construction of the actual reactor building for the first EPR is scheduled to begin in 2019. The two 1,600-MW units are expected to provide 7% of Britain’s electricity needs when fully operational, or enough to power six million homes. The cost of the project has been put at £18bn (about €20bn, $22bn). The GAO report is online: http://bit.ly/2t1kFLg