By Nina Chestney <\/p>\n
LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) – French power company EDF and the British government have signed an agreement to extend the \u200clife of the Sizewell B nuclear power plant in Suffolk, England, \u200cby 20 years to 2055, they said on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
\u2022 The 1.2-gigawatt plant was commissioned in \u200b1995 and was due to stop generating in 2035. That has been extended by 20 years. <\/p>\n
\u2022 EDF and the government signed a contract for difference (CfD) agreement to extend the plant’s life. Sizewell B will receive a guaranteed \u00a370.50 \u200cper megawatt-hour from April 2035 \u2060to March 2055 for the electricity it produces based on 2025 prices. <\/p>\n
\u2022 A nuclear CfD guarantees a strike price \u2060for power output. When market prices are lower, consumers make up the difference and when prices are higher, the generator pays the excess back. <\/p>\n
\u2022 The scheme \u200baims \u200bto give low-carbon projects a predictable source \u200bof income. <\/p>\n
\u2022 EDF said it \u200cwill fund a major refurbishment of the plant during planned outages over the next 15 years, costing around \u00a3800 million ($1.07 billion). <\/p>\n
\u2022 Sizewell B provides around 3% of the UK’s total electricity needs. The extension will ensure 2.5 million homes are powered and protect consumers from exposure to volatile fossil fuel \u200cmarkets, the government said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u2022 \u200bMany UK nuclear reactors have already shut \u200bdown and others have had \u200blife extensions to the end of this decade. A \u200cnew plant, Hinkley Point C, has \u200bhad repeated delays and \u200brising costs. The first reactor is now expected to start up around 2030. The other new plant, Sizewell C, won project approval \u200blast year after securing \u200cinvestment. <\/p>\n
\u2022 British energy firm Centrica has a 20% stake in \u200bBritain’s operational nuclear fleet, which consists of five plants. <\/p>\n
($1 = 0.7492 pounds) <\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Nina Chestney;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Nina Chestney LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) – French power company EDF and the British government have signed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[2318,33146,35367,35368,5,6],"class_list":["post-79447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-british-government","tag-edf","tag-nuclear-power-plant","tag-sizewell","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116886999012330164","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}