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Germans set pace in nuclear power chase
Robert Lea and Hugo Duncan29 Apr 2009
German energy giants E.On and RWE npower have muscled in on the battle to build Britain's new fleet of nuclear reactors.
After seven weeks of a secret eBay-style auction run by the Government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), a consortium of E.On and RWE has paid up to what is believed to be £350 million, giving it the right to build new £4 billion nuclear stations in Wales and the West Country.
The auction is set to bring the taxpayer an unexpectedly large windfall of almost £400 million.
The German groups — already two of the UK's biggest energy generators — have won the auction to acquire land next to the existing but now largely redundant atomic stations of Oldbury in Gloucestershire and Wylfa in Wales.
It is understood Wylfa, on Anglesey, was the hottest property in the auction, attracting bids from the Germans, French giant EDF which already owns UK nuclear generating company British Energy, and a consortium of Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), GDF Suez of France and Spain's Iberdrola.
The withdrawal from the auction yesterday by the latter consortium because of the spiralling prices brought the seven-week auction to a close.
Initial estimates had suggested the auction would not last much longer than a week, and might raise only £100 million.
In the end, the winning E.On/RWE bids plus a winning bid for a third site — Bradwell in Essex — by EDF are understood to have raised more than £450 million.
The vast majority of that goes to the taxpayer, although about £70 million is set to be paid by E.On/RWE to EDF because EDF had previously acquired some of the land at Wylfa.
The auction result means the UK will now have at least two European powerhouses vying to build at least six new nuclear power stations around the country over the next decade.
EDF has already vowed to build as many as four stations — including new reactors at Dungeness in Kent and Sizewell in Suffolk SSE, the company behind Southern Electric, may yet rejoin the battle to join the new nuclear age.
The NDA is to auction a fourth site, next to Sellafield in Cumbria, in the coming months, and initial soundings suggest the SSE consortium will bid.
Reader views (2)
It does not matter who builds the Nuclear power stations, what matters is that they get built to the right safety specifications and on time. Sadly our own record on major building and development projects leaves a lot to be desired. The question of who controls them once built is another matter, but I doubt whether any Governmnmet would allow total control to be in the hands of unaccountable foreign companies/Governments.
- Paul, South London, 30/04/2009 10:36
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Desperate for cash today, Labour sells our future electricity generating capacity to foreigners, ensuring expensive energy in the future.
I rememeber when our EU allies would not sell us ammunition. Why trust them with our Electricity?
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, 29/04/2009 15:16
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