26 Nov (NucNet): Hitachi has completed the acquisition of the UK’s Horizon nuclear project from German utilities RWE and E.ON, the Japanese energy and engineering company said today.
Hitachi now owns two sites – one at Wylfa in Anglesey and the other at Oldbury in Gloucestershire – and says it plans to build two to three 1,300 megawatt (MW) nuclear reactor units at each.
In a statement today Hitachi said it will now begin discussions with UK regulators to obtain approval to use Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) technology.
Hitachi said its ABWR technology is the only Generation III technology in commercial operation and is already licensed for use in several countries including the US. Four ABWR units have already been built in Japan.
One of the company’s “early priorities” in the UK will be supply chain engagement with events expected to be held early in 2013, Hitachi said.
In October 2012 Hitachi said it will start leading a programme of building new nuclear reactors in the UK after agreeing to buy Horizon for about 700 million pounds (1.1 billion US dollars, 864 million euro) from RWE and E.ON.
Hitachi has said it will work with two leading British engineering companies, Babcock International and Rolls-Royce, to build ABWRs at Wylfa and Oldbury, with the first unit becoming operational in the first half of 2020s.
The UK’s energy minister Ed Davey told a committee of MPs recently that there was huge “international interest” when Horizon was put up for sale with many countries and companies taking “a much greater interest” in the new UK nuclear market than previously.
He said: “Hitachi, I am told, paid more than many people expected they would pay, so I think that was a vote of confidence.”
