Cost concerns raised as nuclear plan revealed

The government has been urged to learn lessons from other countries to lower the cost of building nuclear power stations.

The UK is currently the second most expensive place to build nuclear power stations, research released by infrastructure campaign group Britain Remade reveals.

It comes as the government publishes its nuclear energy roadmap, setting out how it intends to deliver 24 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050.

Among a series of pledges the roadmap states its intention to relax planning rules for small modular reactors and pledges to explore one more large-scale power station before the end of the current Parliament.

However, Britain Remade urges the government to take a “fleet approach” to rolling out nuclear power, warning that the current “piecemeal” approach focusing on individual projects forces costs up.

The group’s research ranks the UK 15th out of 16 countries by construction cost per megawatt hour (MW) of generating capacity, with only America performing worse.

By way of comparison, the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset is on course to cost £33 billion, the second most expensive project in the world, at £10.03 million per MW of generation capacity. Using the same reactor design China was able to build Taishan 1 and 2 for just over a fifth of this cost.

The report adds that China’s low cost may be explained, in part, by workers earning less, but it adds that Finland and France have also been able to build at lower costs. Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 cost £5.97 million per MW capacity built, while France’s Flamanville 3 cost £7.24 million.

It points to South Korea as “the runaway success” when it comes to building new nuclear cheaply. The East Asian nation is able to build nuclear plants at roughly a quarter of the cost of building in Britain. While Britain builds for £9.42 million per MW, South Korea can build one for just £2.24 million per MW.

The report adds that South Korea is able to achieve this because “unlike Britain – which has not built a new nuclear reactor in 28 years – they have a strategy of building entire fleets of new nuclear plants, rather than taking a piecemeal approach”.

“By building fleets, instead of individual reactors like in Britain, the Koreans benefit from economies of scale and gain valuable experience while building a highly skilled workforce,” the report adds.

According to Britain Remade the major costs “start to stack up” in the planning process in the UK.

It adds: “While many of the financing issues for new nuclear have now been fixed, the planning system remains a major barrier to building fast and cheap.

“With a 44,260 page environmental impact assessment (EIA) and 2,229 written questions at the examination stage, Sizewell C, the next reactor after Hinkley Point C, has faced enormous expense before a spade is even in the ground.”

Sam Richards, founder and campaign director at Britain Remade, said: “Britain led the world in going nuclear. We were the country that split the atom, built the world’s first full-scale nuclear power station, and then built another nine in the decade that followed.

“But our latest research has shown that Britain is no longer a world leader when it comes to building nuclear power stations. Almost every country that builds new nuclear is able to do so much cheaper than we can. This should be a wake up call for everyone in government.

“Yes we have built a huge amount of renewable energy projects over the last decade, but without new nuclear power it will be impossible to achieve a clean power grid by 2030. Not only does this mean we’ll have higher energy bills for longer, it also means that we will miss out on thousands of jobs up and down the country.

“High nuclear costs are not inevitable. If we can learn the lessons of other countries that have kept costs down and address the issues with our outdated and sluggish planning system, then Britain can still have a bright, atom-powered future.”