The Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, at the heart of government energy plans, has been hit by fresh delays in another blow to confidence surrounding an already troubled project, reports The Guardian.
EDF, the French energy company promoting the £18bn reactor scheme, admitted there would be no final investment decision at least till the summer, leading the environmental group Greenpeace to claim the project is “coming to a grinding halt”.
The latest setback comes less than a week after the French economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, told the BBC that the project would be given the go-ahead in the “coming week or month”.
EDF was itself aiming to be able to give the green light at the company’s annual general meeting on 12 May but has bowed to pressure from employees to consult an internal union-management council.
The company said in a statement after a board meeting: “The board has decided to undertake a formal, non-binding consultation process with the comité central d’enterprise. This is [a] well-understood statutory process of 60 days and the company will work with the CCE to define the detailed steps to reach a conclusion this summer.”
The scheme to build new reactors in Somerset has been dogged by delays and disputes since a formal signing in front of David Cameron last October, when work was said to be ready to begin within days. But alarm has grown inside EDF, which is 85% owned by the French government, about the scale of its future financial commitments and debts at a time of plunging power prices and difficulties with other projects.