CONSULTING

June 2015, E.ON, the majority owner of Oskarshamn-2, said it wanted to shut down the unit
because it was unprofitable to operate, even though minority owner Fortum disagreed. 812
Oskarshamn-1 is now scheduled to go offline as early as 2017.
In 2015, the United Kingdom operated 16 reactors, which provided 63.9 TWh or
18.9 percent of the country’s electricity, down from a maximum of 26.9 percent in 1997. The U.K.
nuclear power plant operators EDF Energy and Magnox Ltd. do not transmit load factor data to
Nuclear Engineering International (NEI). Data published in the IAEA-PRIS database indicate that
the average load factor for the U.K. reactors in 2015 was 76.3 percent 813 , up from 69.4 percent in
2014, but still well below its European counterparts.
The 11 first-generation Magnox plants, nine with twin reactors and two with four reactors, had
all been retired by the start of 2015, except for Wylfa-1, which was closed at the end of 2015. The
U.K.’s seven second-generation nuclear stations, each with two Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors
(AGR), are also at or near the end of their design lives. However, owner EDF Energy is planning to
extend the life of all the AGRs, and announced in January 2015 that it planned to seek a 5-year
extension to 2024 for its Heysham-1 and Hartlepool plants and a 10-year extension to 2030 for
its Heysham-2 and Torness plants. 814 The newest plant, Sizewell-B, is the only PWR in the U.K. and
was completed in 1995.
In 2006, the Labour Government of Tony Blair started to organize the framework of a new-build
program. In July 2011, the Government released the National Policy Statement (NPS) for Nuclear
Power Generation. 815 The eight “potentially suitable” sites considered in the document for
deployment “before the end of 2025” are exclusively current or past nuclear power plant sites in
England or Wales, except for one new site, Moorside, adjacent to the fuel chain facilities at
Sellafield. 816 Northern Ireland and Scotland 817 are not included.
EDF Energy, majority-owned by French state utility EDF, was given planning permission to build
two reactors at Hinkley Point in April 2013. In October 2015, EDF and the U.K. Government 818
announced updates to the October 2013 provisional agreement of commercial terms of the deal
812 WNA, “Nuclear power in Sweden”, Updated 17 June 2016, see http://www.worldnuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-O-S/Sweden/,
accessed 2 July 2016.
813 The IAEA calculates its load factors on the current rather than the design rating of the plant. Most of
the U.K. reactors are unable to operate at design rating and actual capacity is 10 percent below design
capacity. Calculating load factor on the basis of design rating, as would be more appropriate, would reduce
the average to about 70 percent.
814 WNN, “EDF Energy extends lives of UK AGR plants”, 16 February 2016, see http://www.world-nuclearnews.org/C-EDF-Energy-extends-lives-of-UK-AGR-plants-1602164.html,
accessed 18 June 2016.
815 DECC, “National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation”, July 2011.
816 Bradwell, Hartlepool, Heysham, Hinkley Point, Oldbury, Sizewell, Sellafield, and Wylfa.
817 The Scottish government is opposed to new-build and said it would not allow replacement of the
Torness and Hunterston plants once they are shut down (probably in 2016 and 2023, respectively). Only
18 percent of the Scottish people supported new-build in a pre-Fukushima poll; see The Scotsman, “Only
18% of Scots Say ‘Yes’ to New Nuclear Power Stations”, 27 September 2010.
818 Department of Energy and Climate Change, “Hinkley Point C to power six million UK homes”, U.K.
Government, 21 October 2015, see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hinkley-point-c-to-power-sixmillion-uk-homes,
accessed 18 June 2016.
Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al. 193 World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016