Britain’s most recently completed nuclear power plant will continue generating electricity until 2055 after the government granted the power plant, which was first synchronised with the National Grid in 1995, a 20-year life extension.
Sizewell B in Suffolk was due to shut down within the next decade, but under a deal with the government its lifetime will be extended to 60 years to help meet the UK’s growing demand for low-carbon electricity.
The nuclear plant, which first began generating power in 1995, produces 3% of Britain’s electricity, enough to meet the equivalent demand of 2.5m homes.
The government approved plans by Sizewell’s owner, French state utility EDF, to extend its life, alongside a string of policies designed to encourage the country’s first new nuclear power projects in a generation.
The government hopes that a “golden age of nuclear” will help the UK meet the growing need for electricity to power electric vehicles, low-carbon heating and AI datacentres while keeping its climate commitments intact.
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said: “Nuclear power is vital for our energy security, and this extension will help produce the clean power our country needs.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the life extension was “a real vote of confidence in the hundreds of skilled workers in Suffolk who will power Britain’s clean energy future, delivering the long-term certainty that businesses and workers need”.
Under the deal, EDF will receive £70.50 for every megawatt-hour Sizewell B generates, starting from 2035, when it was originally due to close. The extra investment needed to maintain the plant will come from Centrica, which owns a 20% share in EDF’s reactors in the UK.
Sizewell B is the latest nuclear reactor to strike a deal with the government to continue running, following the decision to extend the life of four nuclear plants built across the country in the 1980s.
The Heysham 2 nuclear reactor in Lancashire and the Torness nuclear plant in East Lothian, Scotland, were originally expected to shut in 2018 but will keep producing low-carbon electricity to March 2030. Meanwhile, the Heysham 1 plant and the Hartlepool nuclear plant in Teesside, which were initially expected to close in 2008, will run until March 2028.
Meanwhile, the first new nuclear power plant in a generation is under construction at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, and is expected to begin generating electricity in the early 2030s. Its successor project at a site adjacent to the Sizewell B plant, known as Sizewell C, is scheduled to start operations before 2039.
The government is also supporting a new generation of small modular reactors which are expected to begin generating in the 2030s, and promise quicker development timelines and lower costs.
The government’s new nuclear ambitions are designed to complement a wider ambition for renewable energy which by the end of the decade could see onshore wind double, solar power triple and offshore wind quadruple.
Ministers approved the construction of Great Britain’s second-largest solar farm on the borders of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire on Wednesday. One Earth Solar Farm could power more than 200,000 homes a year, the equivalent of half the homes in Lincolnshire, and marks the 30th major clean energy project approved by the Labour government since it came to power two years ago.
Miliband said: “The only way to have energy security is if we take a pro-growth approach to building more clean energy in Britain. For two years that is exactly what this government has done.”
