Scottish & Southern pulls out of Cumbrian nuclear venture
SCOTTISH & Southern Energy (SSE) is to sell its share of a joint venture set up to build a nuclear power station in Cumbria.
The company has announced that it has told partners in the Nugeneration project that it intends to sell its 25% stake, arguing that its resources would be “better deployed on business activities and technologies where it has the greatest knowledge and experience”.
Nugeneration is a joint venture between SSE, GDF Suez and Iberdrola which was set up in 2009 to develop a 3.6GW nuclear power plant in West Cumbria.
In October 2009, it paid £19.5m for an option to build on the site, which was highlighted by the government as a suitable plot for a new nuclear power station in its National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation back in June.
SSE’s generation and supply director, Alistair Phillips-Davies, said that although the UK needs both new nuclear and renewable projects, it had much more in-depth knowledge of the latter and would concentrate its efforts on projects in that area.
“NuGen will have to make a multi-billion pound investment decision around 2015, but even getting to the point of that decision will absorb, from now on, significant financial and management resources from everyone in the joint venture,” he said.
“We have concluded that, for the time being, our resources are better deployed on business activities and technologies where we have the greatest knowledge and experience.”
GDF And Iberdrola issued their own statement saying they intended to buy out SSE to bring their stakes in the venture to 50% each.
The statement said that “significant” progress had been made on the development and a planning application has already been submitted. Some site work could also start before the end of 2011.
“We are highly confident about our prospects in respect of our development plans in West Cumbria and there is no reason why this decision by SSE should impact upon our plans or timetable,” it said.
“As scheduled, the final investment decision should take place around 2015 with commercial operation of a new nuclear power station expected by 2023.”
