Sizewell C cost ‘has doubled since 2020 and could near £40bn’
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Treasury expected to decide whether to support EDF-backed nuclear power plant in this year’s spending review. The cost of building the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk has doubled since the plans were presented to the UK government in 2020 and could now reach close to £40bn, according to reports.
A rise in construction charges over recent years, combined with cost overruns and delays at EDF’s Hinkley Point C nuclear project in Somerset is expected to increase the final bill to build a successor project at Sizewell, according to the Financial Times.
A report cited people close to the talks between EDF and the government, which are focused on how to finance the nuclear project. The Treasury is expected to decide whether to back the project in this year’s spending review. According to the report, one senior government figure and two well-placed industry sources said that the cost of building Sizewell C would be about £40bn in 2025 prices. EDF has been contacted for comment.
The fresh concern over costs has emerged weeks after the Labour donor and green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince challenged the government’s new value for money tsar to examine the costs of a nuclear power. Vince wrote late last year to the chair of the government’s new Office for Value for Money (OVfM), David Goldstone, to say that the nuclear plant had spiralling costs and would “will saddle consumers with higher bills long before it delivers a single unit of electricity”.
The UK government and the French state-owned company EDF will fund about 40% of the Sizewell C project, which is planned to generate enough electricity to power 6m homes. Government officials are now gauging interest from private investors to meet the rest of the costs.
