Johnson announces aim for UK to get 25% of electricity from nuclear power
Boris Johnson has told nuclear industry bosses that the government wants the UK to get 25% of its electricity from nuclear power, in a move that would signal a significant shift in the country’s energy mix.
Johnson on Monday met executives from major nuclear utilities and technology companies including the UK’s Rolls-Royce, France’s EDF, and the US’s Westinghouse and Bechtel to discuss ways of helping to speed up the development of new nuclear power stations.
The UK generates about 16% of its power from nuclear power stations, but several reactors are slated for closure, while electricity demand is expected to rise steadily in the next decade. That would mean large investments in new power stations would be required just to keep the share of nuclear constant, let alone increase it to a record level of just over a quarter of electricity use.
Also present at the meeting were a series of big pension companies and insurers, including Aviva, Legal & General and Rothesay Life, alongside major foreign investors including Australia’s Macquarie and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Ministers have wrestled for years with how to attract private capital to invest in nuclear – but companies have balked at putting pension and insurance cash at risk.
The government is considering changes to insurance rules set by the EU and copied by the UK to make it easier for insurers and pensions to invest. The UK is switching to a “regulated asset base” model, which it hopes will give long-term investors more certainty on returns, a change it hopes will address limitations to the current rules, known as Solvency II.
The government wanted to show the nuclear and investment industries that it had a “clear ambition for more nuclear” in part to
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