EDF's Hinkley Point C decision delayed until May

Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of French power group EDF, pledged to MPs on the Energy and Climate Change Committee yesterday that Hinkley Point C will be built, insisting that confidence remained in the £18b project. However, he refused to divulge any time scale for the final investment decision, referring only to comments made by the economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, that EDF will now make a final investment decision in early May.

EDF Energy has insisted it will take a decision to go ahead with new reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset but was unwilling to say exactly when despite being pressed by exasperated MPs.

The French government, which owns 85% of EDF, has previously said it was aiming for the start of May but Vincent de Rivaz, the chief executive of the UK arm of EDF, was unwilling to set a timescale.

“I can’t give you this morning a precise date. I just have to give the one provided by the [French] economics ministry,” said de Rivaz after repeated requests to name a date by MPs on the energy and climate change select committee.

The endless delays in setting a firm date for the final investment decision is seen by critics as a potent symbol of the nuclear industry’s inability to build power stations on time and on budget.

De Rivaz was forced to defend the record of his company and French nuclear engineering more widely over a nine-year delay at a new plant in Finland and six years at Flamanville in France.

An artist’s impression issued by EDF of plans for the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Photograph: EDF Energy/PA

The pressure on EDF came as a succession of expert witnesses at the select committee hearing lined up to pan the Hinkley project saying it should be scrapped for costing too much.

Peter Atherton, a utility analyst with Jefferies investment bank, said the French had got a “great, great deal” from the UK bill paper via the government’s subsidy regime, adding “once it’s operational that power station is going to be gold”.

Simon Taylor, a specialist in nuclear financing and a lecturer at Cambridge University, said Hinkley “looks poor value for money” and it would be best if the French government pulled the plug on it.

“It would preserve the rest of the nuclear options in the UK, as it would not cast any doubt on the UK’s underlying commitment. but if the UK cancels the project it could jeopardise all the other projects in the pipeline.”

Doug Parr, policy director from Greenpeace, said there were cheaper and cleaner ways of meeting energy security and carbon targets via renewable energy and storage.

“If it is built, it will be an act of political will of the UK and French governments ... [it was now] beyond any commercial logic.”



But de Rivaz repeatedly insisted that the scheme to provide 7% of Britain’s electricity would go ahead and that it was in the interests of consumers, investors and the government that it did so.

But he admitted a 35% fall in wholesale power prices over the last six months had put more pressure on the company’s balance sheet and that EDF and the French government were still working on a variety of fixes, such as the sale of assets and swapping cash for equity dividends.

“Hinkley Point C will go ahead. That’s good news for the UK. It has been a long road. The project has successfully passed a huge number of regulatory, commercial and operational milestones.”