Westinghouse enters Sellafield
24 Dec 2013
US nuclear reactor firm Westinghouse joins up with GDF Suez to build 3.6GW plant at Sellafield.
Westinghouse is entering the Cumbrian project after its parent company Toshiba yesterday acquired Iberdola’s 50% stake in project company NuGen for £85 million.
NuGen plans to build a new nuclear plant on a 100ha plot of land next to the existing Sellafield nuclear plant, calling it Moorside Power Plant.
The acquisition of Iberdrola’s NuGen shares comes a year after Toshiba lost out to Japanese rival Hitachi in acquiring Horizon Nuclear Power, which is planning to build a 3.6GW plant at Wylfa on the Isle of Anglesey, North Wales.
Earlier this month HM Treasury confirmed the Wylfa project, which is set to use Hitachi’s Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR), was eligible to receive a government investment guarantee.
However, both Hitachi’s AWBR and Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor have yet to be approved by the Health and Safety Executive’s Generic Design Assessment (GDA) scheme, albeit with Westinghouse’s application having progressed through a substantial amount of the process.
The only new nuclear reactor currently approved under the GDA is EDF and Areva’s 1,630MW European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), two of which will be used on the £14 billion Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.
