New Nuclear in the UK Kicked up a Notch
As European utilities vie in an auction for the pubic land on which the UK’s new fleet of nuclear power plants will be built, the UK government on Monday announced it would sell the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s commercial arm, an entity that provides nuclear decommissioning, waste management, and new nuclear build support services.
The UK currently operates 19 reactors, which produce about 20% of its electricity—and all but one of these will be retired by 2023. The new fleet of nuclear plants—which will be built for the first time by the private sector—are expected to be online by about 2017.
Bids for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s e-Bay–style auction of land next to existing power stations at Wylfa in Anglesey, Bradwell in Essex, and Oldbury in Gloucestershire surpassed £200 million ($286 million)—much more than the government expected—The Sunday Times reported.
The Wylfa and Oldbury sites each house two Magnox reactors that are expected to be decommissioned by 2010. Bradwell, also the site of two Magnox reactors, was decommissioned in 2002. The auction, which was expected to last seven days, is now in its second week. It is expected to conclude soon, once a period of 24 hours has elapsed without a bid on any of the three lots.
A consortium of Scottish and Southern Energy, Spain’s Iberdrola, and France’s GDF Suez has bid on all three sites, according to UK media reports. French state-owned Électricité de France, meanwhile, is contending for the Bradwell site, because it already owns a portion of that land. Though German generation giants RWE and E.ON last week submitted a joint bid for all three sites, Reuters reported that each has different interests: RWE has options on farmland near the Wylfa site, whereas E.ON has sites near Oldbury.
Winners of the auction will have to go through a Strategic Siting Assessment, which the government is still drawing up, as well as the standard planning process. They would also need to choose a reactor technology from the two being studied by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Environment Agency: Westinghouse’s AP1000 and AREVA’s UK EPR.
Four designs had been initially considered. But Atomic Energy of Canada withdrew its ACR-1000 design from consideration in April last year, and in September, GE-Hitachi asked regulators to “temporarily suspend their assessment of the ESBWR,” the HSE said on its website.
Meanwhile, on Monday, the government’s plans to sell the commercial arm of the Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA Ltd.) and withdraw from the clean-up side of its nuclear sector marked a departure from policies to keep decommissioning and waste management services state-owned.
UKAEA Ltd. provides nuclear decommissioning, waste management, and site and environmental remediation. It also provides nuclear new build support services under contract both in the UK and overseas.
The government said it would seek a purchaser for up 100% of the issued shared capital for UKAEA Ltd., but it will consider retaining a stake in the company. It said the move was initiated by a strategic review following passage of the Energy Act 2004, and that it is the “culmination of a process to develop a commercially viable nuclear decommissioning business.” A sale is expected by the end of this year.
“As the UK moves towards an era of nuclear new build, this sale will increase efficiency, competition and value for money for the taxpayer in the decommissioning and clean up work of old nuclear power stations,” Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said in a government press release.
Sources: The Sunday Times, Reuters, UKAEA