In 2020, nuclear power accounted for 16 per cent of UK electricity generation, but the timetable for the closure of the EDF-owned facilities by 2028 will result in a significant reduction in the UK’s generating capacity.
While the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (DBEIS) has acknowledged there will be a gap in generating capacity, it said it was “not concerned with there being a shortage owing to its confidence that electricity capacity could be bought from other sources ahead of time.”
Nevertheless, the PAC recommends that DBEIS and EDF should “double-check whether it would be technically feasible, safe and cost-effective to extend the lives of any of the remaining operating stations”.
The Committee, which is formed from a cross-party group of MPs, also said that taxpayers were facing “a disproportionate amount of risk for meeting future decommissioning costs” for the seven plants and criticised the government’s investment strategy...