EDF Energy is planning to extend the life of four nuclear power stations in the UK and step up investment in its British nuclear fleet.
The French energy company said it would make a decision on whether to extend the life of the four UK plants with advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGR) – Torness, Heysham 1 and 2, and Hartlepool – by the end of the year. This would require regulatory approval.
A spokesperson for the company said it would depend on inspections, adding there would not be long lifetime extensions but “incremental”.
Last March, EDF extended lifetimes at Hartlepool and Heysham 1 by a further two years to March 2026. Heysham 2 and Torness power stations are now due to stay operational until March 2028.
The company is also looking into running its Sizewell B plant on the Suffolk coast for 20 years longer than scheduled, until 2055. It is the UK’s only pressurised water reactor plant and has a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts (GW). A final decision will be taken next year.
EDF said it would invest a further £1.3bn in its whole UK nuclear fleet, which employs 5,000 people, between 2024 and 2026, taking the total invested to nearly £9bn since 2009. It plans to hire more than 1,000 people at its UK nuclear operations this year.
Mark Hartley, the managing director of EDF’s nuclear operations business, said: “Looking ahead, our aim is to maintain the output of the four AGR stations for as long as possible and extend Sizewell B by a further 20 years out to 2055.”
EDF Energy operates all of Britain’s five nuclear power stations that generate electricity. A further three are defuelling (Hunterston B, Hinkley Point B and Dungeness B), the first stage of decommissioning.
The output of EDF’s UK nuclear fleet was 37.3 terawatt hours last year, 15% lower than the year before because of station closures and statutory outages. The company aims to maintain output at 2023 levels until at least 2026.
EDF is building the Sizewell C nuclear power plant on the Suffolk coast. A legal challenge brought by a campaign group against the government’s decision to build the 3.2GW plant was rejected last summer.
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The French state-controlled company is planning to build and operate new nuclear plants in France. The country needs more than the six new nuclear power stations that are planned and may need to build 14 new plants in total, its energy minister said this week, a few days before a parliamentary debate on the issue.
Agnès Pannier-Runacher, France’s energy transition minister, told the weekly newspaper La Tribune Dimanche that it was vital to build more nuclear reactors and increase renewable energy sources to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels to 40% from 60% by 2035.
