On Tuesday, the UK government made the final investment decision to construct the $51 billion Sizewell C nuclear power station. This will help Britain generate more low-carbon energy.
The government and French energy firm EDF were able to make the final investment choice because additional investors joined them. The UK will own 44.9% of the project at first, making it the largest equity stakeholder. La Caisse owns 20% of the company, Centrica, a UK energy conglomerate, owns 15%, and Amber Infrastructure owns 7.6% of the company. EDF is putting 12.5% of its money into the project, and France’s export credit agency, Bpifrance Assurance Export, has offered to back the company’s commercial bank loans with a $6.7 billion (£5 billion) debt guarantee.
The government said that the funding model spreads the cost of building Sizewell C, which is about $51 billion (£38 billion), between consumers, taxpayers, and private investors. They also said that the model was chosen after learning from the Hinkley Point C project, which went way over budget.
“We’re delighted to welcome new investors alongside Government and EDF who, like our suppliers, have strong incentives to keep costs under control and ensure we deliver Sizewell C successfully for consumers and taxpayers,” Julia Pyke and Nigel Cann, Joint Managing Directors of Sizewell C, said.
France’s EDF and China’s General Nuclear Power Group first suggested Sizewell C years ago. But in 2022, the UK government bought out the Chinese group’s interest because they were worried about China’s might.
In more than 30 years, Sizewell C is the first nuclear power station owned by the UK to be announced.
The UK government has already committed billions of UK pounds of investment in Sizewell C on the Suffolk Coast in east England, including $19.5 billion (£14.2 billion) announced in June to support the project.
In recent years, the UK has put a lot of money into nuclear power to make its energy supply safer and help it attain net-zero emissions by 2050.
The UK government is supporting the development of Small Modular Reactors (SMR) technology via contests to get private funding. The goal is to have one of the first SMR fleets in Europe in the long run.