Labour donor Dale Vince urges ‘rigorous financial scrutiny’ of Sizewell C costs
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Green energy entrepreneur voices concerns over project’s funding and ‘spiralling costs’ of UK’s other nuclear plants. The government’s new value for money tsar has been challenged to examine the costs of a nuclear power station to be given final approval next year, as ministers attempt to shore up private investment for the project.
![[Green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/08bbac4970fd3b1874fbb46339d796a662424142/0_406_4809_2886/master/4809.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
New nuclear plants are a key part of the government’s plan to have clean power by 2030. The Sizewell C reactor, billed as generating enough energy to power 6m homes, is expected to be given the final go ahead in June’s review of public spending. Its projected costs are in excess of £20bn.
However, Labour donor and green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince has written to the chair of the governments’ new Office for Value for Money (OVfM), David Goldstone, arguing that a nuclear plant already being built has seen spiralling costs. He also warns the construction of Sizewell C “will saddle consumers with higher bills long before it delivers a single unit of electricity”.
The government and the French state-owned company EDF will fund about 40% of the Sizewell C project, with ministers currently rounding up private investors to meet the rest of the costs. In his letter, Vince claims that billions have already been spent on the project, even “before a final investment decision has been made”. He also raises concerns about the ballooning costs and delays of Sizewell C’s sister project, Hinkley Point C, in Somerset.
“If Hinkley Point C is anything to go by, Sizewell C really should have rigorous financial scrutiny,” he writes. “Originally priced at £18bn, the cost of Hinkley has ballooned to £46bn and then there’s the delays. Back in 2007, the then EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said that by Christmas 2017 we would be using electricity generated from atomic power at Hinkley. We’re now in Christmas 2024 and Hinkley isn’t due to be completed until 2031.
