Hitachi confirms £700m Horizon nuclear deal

Multiple articles on the purchase of nuclear project sites in the UK by what is being cited as Hitachi - the offer included a number of partners, and GE is/was a co-owner of the nuclear business.

Hitachi confirms £700m Horizon nuclear deal - 30 Oct 2012 - News from BusinessGreen:

From GE Hitachi Fact Sheet

Hitachi has this morning confirmed it will buy the Horizon nuclear venture from E.ON and RWE in a £696m deal that could see the Japanese conglomerate build between four and six new reactors in the UK.
The widely trailed purchase is a much-needed shot in the arm for the government's plans to build 16GW of new nuclear capacity by the mid-2020s, which had looked in jeopardy after the two German utilities put Horizon up for sale earlier in the year.
Hitachi said it intends to progress with plans to build between two and three new nuclear plants at Wylfa on Anglesey and the same number at Oldbury in Gloucestershire, which could generate enough clean power to supply up to 14 million homes over 60 years.
The first plant could be up and running in the first half of the 2020s, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said in a statement this morning...Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey also announced the creation of a new Nuclear Industry Council working across industry and government to build a strong strategy for the sector.

Continue Reading at Business Green:

Financial Times: Hitachi deal fires up UK nuclear

While the government will be delighted that Horizon has new owners, choosing Hitachi could prove problematic for the UK’s nuclear timetable. Its reactor design has yet to be submitted to UK regulators and the approval process can take four years. Rival designs by French engineering giant Areva and Westinghouse are much closer to getting the green light.
However, people close to Hitachi say its design has the advantage of being “proven technology”: four have been built, on budget and schedule, and another four are under construction. They say the reactor takes only 3½ years to build, less than competitors’ designs.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/800422d6-21dc-11e2-b5d2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2AmVQ7ySo

 The Guardian had an article on the deal but concentrated efforts on diffusing it with "Renewable energy will overtake nuclear power by 2018, research says."  The article parrots points made in "Wind: State of the Industry" which expects nuclear generation to disappear.
Thus the surge in coal use in Europe, as the wind industry continues it's strategy to replace clean baseload with a combination of 'clean' intermittent generation and dirty firm capacity.