EDF seeks clarity on UK's nuclear plans

The chair of French power company EDF was due to have a video conference with British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak on Wednesday to seek clarification over the future of investment in Britain's nuclear industry.

Last month, Japanese conglomerate Hitatchi pulled out of a long-delayed 20 billion pound ($25.7 billion) development on Anglesey in North Wales, citing concerns over funding and a lack of investors.

The abandonment of the proposal, which had been on hold since early 2019, has cost the region hundreds of new jobs, and means that just EDF and China General Nuclear, or CGN, currently have plans for nuclear power plants in the United Kingdom.

EFD is largely owned by the French state, and it is believed that senior figures in Paris are not happy at the prospect of Britain's ageing nuclear reactors being overhauled with French taxpayers' money.

EDF wants any projects to be supported by funding from taxes in the UK, and the decision comes at the same time as Britain is pondering whether its future energy investment should be in big nuclear facilities or smaller, more diverse alternatives.

A plant under construction at Hinkley Point in Somerset is 33 percent owned by CGN, with the remainder belonging to EDF, and the Chinese company has also taken a 20 percent stake in a development at Sizewell, in Norfolk, with the BBC reporting that this was done based on the understanding that it would then get to design its own reactor at Bradwell in Essex.

However, the UK government has backtracked its decision on Chinese telecoms company Huawei's involvement in the country's 5G phone network, which has led to growing concerns that China's role in building Britain's nuclear facilities could also be reassessed.

Horizon Nuclear Power, the Hitatchi-owned developer of the Anglesey site, has continued with its planning permission application and hopes to find another option, with Chief Executive Duncan Hawthorne saying the company was ready to revive action on site as soon as a new funding agreement was in place.

The Anglesey project is the third Japanese-backed nuclear developments in the UK to have come to nothing in recent years. Previously there was one proposed and abandoned by Toshiba at Moorside in Cumbria, and Hitachi's plans for a facility at Oldbury-on-Severn in Gloucestershire were also scrapped.

The United States government is believed to have raised concerns about the possibility of the Anglesey site ending up in Chinese hands and it is thought two US companies, Westinghouse and NuScale Power, are interested in it, as well as EDF and South Korean company Kepco.