Chinese nuclear firms are reported to be weighing a plan of investing $54.5 billion in building up to five nuclear reactors in the UK. Chinese officials from the nuclear industry including the Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute, an arm of the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), held high-level talks with the officials at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK, in this regard. The first part of the plan envisages CNNC and another state-owned firm, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation, bidding in two separate groups against each other for a stake in the Horizon consortium, which plans to build two new nuclear reactors at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire. The move comes after two German firms announced that they were abandoning plans to build new nuclear in the UK and put Horizon up for sale after Germany accelerated its plans to go nuclear-free. French, Russian and Japanese nuclear companies are also eyeing a stake in Horizon. CNNC wants to use an existing technology tie-up it has with US-based nuclear engineering group Westinghouse for building three more reactors in the UK and has already participated in the generic design reviews of both the Areva EPR and the Westinghouse AP1000. China currently has 14 reactors in operation and 25 under construction using Areva and Westinghouse designs.
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