Electricity Supply

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, in a nutshell, Wylfa Newydd is probably the best nuclear site currently available globally. The Government are very keen to find a developer for it. While we are naturally disappointed that Horizon is not going ahead, any other developer will need to make a fresh development consent order relevant to its own technology. We are keen to discuss new-build projects with the investors of any other companies willing to develop these sites.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

EDF blames the massive cost increases and delays on ground conditions. It has owned the site for more than 10 years and, if it has not been able to work out what is under the ground, heaven help us. More seriously, these cost increases follow similar stories to EDF’s two other projects in Cap de la Hague and Finland. I question whether they will ever open. Who will fund the cost escalations resulting from these delays and changes—the taxpayer, EDF or the consumer? Somebody will have to.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The cost escalation will be entirely borne by the developer. It is one of the reasons why we will pay £92.5 per megawatt hour for the electricity produced from this site. Delays have increased costs, but it had already been announced in 2019 that there was likely to be a delay and that the increased cost would be £500 million. Covid has had a significant effect. In trying to have workers on a socially distanced site, numbers have dropped from 3,800 to 2,000. Post-Covid, the figure is expected to get up to 7,000 employees.