Britain at risk of blackouts amid delays to French-built reactors
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Delays to French-built nuclear power stations will leave the UK at risk of blackouts by 2028, new research has warned.
A “perfect storm” of increased demand because of net zero, the closure of existing nuclear power stations and delays to the delivery of Hinkley Point C, which is being built by French state-owned power company EDF, will leave the country facing a “crunch point” that risks blackouts.
It coincides with new government data showing consumers will have £2.8bn added to their bills in 2028 – about £100 per householder – to pay power station owners to provide generating capacity.
Analysis by Public First predicts that the UK’s demand for power will exceed baseload capacity by 7.5GW at peak times by 2028 – a shortfall equivalent to the power used by more than 7 million homes.
A shortfall is expected as ageing British power infrastructure is set to close in the coming years. Ratcliffe-on-Soar, the UK’s last remaining coal-fired power station, is scheduled to shut down this year.
Hartlepool and Heysham I nuclear power stations will be decommissioned in March 2026 and Heysham II and Torness come offline in March 2028.
At the same time, demand for electricity is expected to increase sharply as Britain shifts away from fossil fuels and adopts technology such as electric vehicles and heat pumps.
The warning comes amid a political row between Westminster and Paris over who will pay for cost overruns on the long-delayed Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor, which was scheduled to open in 2025 at the time of approval but will now not come online until at least 2031.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has demanded “an equitable sharing of costs” but the UK Government insisted the EDF-led development must be privately financed.
The cost of building Hinkley Point C, which is under construction in Somerset, has risen from £18bn to £46bn – equivalent to £700 for everyone in the UK.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Oh dear. What will PM Starmer blame?
The Tories of course
All branches of the Beloved Uniparty are absolutely to blame for this fiasco, predicted by many since the day Potato Ed Davey signed the Contract.
He was Cameron’s Limp Dim Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and went out of his way to choose the worst option available, presumably hoping that the Contract would be cancelled (at enormous cost) later. The Limp Dims were always against nuclear.
He is also the bloke who (in his own words) “Banned Fracking” by imposing lunatic seismic intensity limits. He was (and likely still is) trousering £18,000 p.a. for “advising” solar con-artists.
i pray a special circle in Hell awaits this cretin.
It would be impossible to think of a more stupid energy policy than that produced by successive UK governments. All three main parties are responsible (Labour, LibDem and Conservative). To think Sizewell B was constructed in 5 years, so instead of building more of the same, Ed (Mr Potato) Davey chose an inferior and more expensive French design that nobody has yet managed to build. And what is the government doing in the face of impending blackouts? It is doubling down on the same catastrophic policy – more wind turbines, more solar panels, more BESS, more imports (if we are lucky), more EVs, more heat pumps. No fracking, no RR SMRs any time soon, no CCGTs. Madness. Get your standby generator and stock up on food.
I’ve often thought the same, but I understand that it’s our wonderful civil servants (Oxford PPE graduates, no doubt) who insist on making any future Nuclear power stations proof against an ever-increasing range of extremely unlikely events. The nett result is that the designers can’t simply dust off 20 year old designs, despite that fact that reactors Like Sizewell have been running smoothly and safely ever since they were commissioned.
A few years ago, I was horrified to see that my ex wife, who had a degree in French with Management Studies, was a key player in some official body monitoring the safety record of the UK’s Nuclear generators. She had many redeeming features, but she would never have claimed to have any special knowledge of Nuclear Physics or Reactor Design…
Do you know why she felt qualified to take the job?
The reason probably applies to a lot of members of these bodies.
Glen, you’ve touched on something there. Her previous role was as a private secretary to a junior minister who resigned because he could make more money that way. With his departure, his immediate staff had to be found convenient and not too challenging roles in other parts of the Civil Service, hence her move into Nuclear Safety. (It’s not unlike Homer Simpson’s career path…)
On a recent visit to my sister, who lives in France, we were discussing climate change and my view that it is the biggest scandal in my lifetime. She was horrified at my views and said she had written a paper on climate change for some degree or other, so implying she was an authority on the subject. She didn’t even know how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere, let alone how much was man made.
You are not correct about nobody having built one of these EDF plants. The plant in Finland has just started operating but I think the French one in Flammanville has not.
But when it comes to the bad news, so far Hinckley is only going to be 6 years late when both Finland and Flammanville are 12 years late. The costs are both 5 times the original budget.
We could be prematurely shutting down perfectly functioning nuclear power station for Ideological reasons (although its a bit more complex with the AGRs but did Hunterston B & Hinkley Point B really have to close) like Germany although at least they weren’t as crazy to demolished the coal power stations too.
If you can, buy a generator; 3KVA.
This will keep the lights on, computers etc. Also fridges and freezers plus gas central heating. Won’t do washing machines or electric cookers (though MWs should be OK).
Again, if you have a garage, keep it there and plug the output into any 13a socket (using a plug to plug lead and cable rated at 13A or more), first having turned off the power at the main house fuse box.
Power cut helpline used to be 0800 7838838 but I haven’t checked recently. They would ring/text when power has been restored.
It would be interesting to know if the Openreach fibre broadband network had its own independent power supply to the street boxes, but I doubt it, so best to have a ‘Mi-Fi’ device charged and ready in case the power goes off. I was thinking of a domestic UPS for the eventuality, to keep the fibre interface and router powered for a while, but if the fibre network would also go down, there’s no point.
I plan to use the Mobile WiFi hotspot on my phone to connect other devices using unlimited data.
As Glenartney points out you can simply tether your mobile either by wifi or usb cable to other devices. A fairly cheap plug in inverter to your car cigarette lighter can charge up laptops – mine runs over 12 hours on a full charge. This should do it.
https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/streetwize-150-watt-300-watt-peak-modified-sine-wave-inverter-549778521?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiArfauBhApEiwAeoB7qL9cvZkKTaNFGWgZ4gy5HMdLLnBUeW3kJZq0fFk1fQMg32EtIl6seRoCv1oQAvD_BwE
There’s an increasing number of 5G masts being deployed, and as well as 5G phones, you can get 5G routers from some networks, so with one of these powered via a UPS, you have some resilience. I measured the connection speed of a mast in a neighbouring village (whilst there one day), and saw ~945Mbps down & ~95Mbps up.
… plug the output into any 13a socket (using a plug to plug lead and cable rated at 13A or more), first having turned off the power at the main house fuse box.
Shouldn’t there be a changeover switch to control the risk of applying your genny’s volts to someone repairing the “mains” supply?
A cable with male plugs on both ends would be highly illegal here in the U.S. Too easy to get electrocuted.
switch off the incoming supply at the main bus.
job done.
WilliamkHewitt is correct, as I said in my first posting. That way your home is isolated from the grid, but your fuse board will distribute the generator’s power to all circuits. Expensive switch over gear not required.
Expensive switch over gear not required.
Does this mean that the power line repair team have to rely on the householder to remember to isolate the mains supply before the householder starts the genny? Meaning that if the householder forgets then the genny could apply voltage to the repair team?
I’ve not installed or tested secondary power supplies in domestic premises, but secondary power supply installations in commercial premises, hospitals etc used to require interlocks to ensure that safe operation of a secondary power supply does not rely on a human remembering to do something. These interlocks can be manually operated or automated, the principle being that there should be no situation where a power line repair team could be at risk of being electrocuted by the consumer’s secondary power supply, which might be a generator.
I doubt if a suitable manual changeover switch for a single phase domestic supply would have a material cost of more than £200 (plus installation cost) .
My knowledge of secondary power supplies is not up to date, so I’m prepared to be corrected by a competent poster…
Micky, these posters proposing wiring up double plug ended leads (a.k.a. “widow makers”) are both incompetent and dangerous idiots. I would have ignored them apart from the chances of them killing others through their arrogant stupidity.
… apart from the chances of them killing others through their arrogant stupidity.
The power line repair team should be protected by multiple layers of safety e.g. temporary earths fitted to conductors and the use of protective clothing, although the most effective protection is “no volts” .
It is possible that the householder’s standby genny would stall if connected to the various loads in other local houses when the householder forgets to disconnect the genny from the mains supply. I have now seen new single phase 100A changeover switches selling for less than £100 (installation cost extra), which does seem to be a very low price to prevent the application of volts to the power line repair team.
As I recall from several decades ago, there is a potential issue associated with the floating neutral of a standby generator, but I can’t recall the detail.
I stood within a few yards of an electrocution nearly 40 years ago, the noise and the smell remain memorable, unfortunately.
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO THAT. Firstly it is illegal, secondly it is outstandingly dangerous. It is incredibly irresponsible to advise unqualified people to piss about with electricity supplies in such a manner.
Please withdraw your dangerous “advice”. You are very clearly not qualified to give advice are you?
p
77th Ray ?
Think everyone is a cretin ?
Get boosted now.
Ray S: please could you elaborate on your comment for those, like me, who are not well versed in electrickery? Is it the case that turning off at the main fuseboard does not provide complete isolation?
Apart from generators, there are now EVs with “Vehicle to Load” (V2L) capabilities which can supply 2 – 3 kW at 240V. It’s a useful feature for powering electronics, tools, coolboxes, etc when out and about but it’s easy to see someone using it to try and power their house during an outage.
To Mike Hig, Yes Mike it is quite possible to connect a generator to a domestic supply provided it is done in the correct and safe manner via either a manual or automatic transfer switch fitted by a suitably qualified electrician. A full test of your domestic wiring circuits will also be carried out at the same time.
https://www.justgenerators.co.uk/generators/accessories/power-transfer-switches.html
For the same safety reasons, I will not advise online the full nature of all the problems but a first obvious issue is Earthing (aka grounding).
Generators operate to what is known as a “floating ground”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_ground
Domestic electricity supplies have fixed grounding but do not all have the same earthing type and indeed can have differing earthing systems operating within different circuits for different appliances. A gas boiler for example has two completely independent earthing systems. How many DIYers know that?Messing about with different grounding is recipe for disaster both to appliances and human life.
Ask yourself this, how confident are you that those posters recommending dangerous practices are familiar with the situation. I once saw a person juggling with carving knives…would you try it?
highly dangerous and illegal!!
Works a treat though !
👌
77th Ray? No, a highly qualified person who understands the dangers and risks of suggestions by cretins…like you?
These risks are easily mitigated by straightforward procedures, as you must well know.
Only a complete idiot advocates bypassing sensible safety precautions. Kill yourself by all means.
105 is the universal number for power cuts. But you better ring before your local phone mast runs out of backup power. OFCOM only require 1 hour of backup AFAIK. Much the same applies to fibre networks too. The days of 48 hours cover at your phone exchange are gone. I wait to see the first time we get a breakdown involving a major town or city lasting several hours, meaning that the comms go out. Likelihood of riots and looting high, at least in some areas.
Your subsequent reply on this thread clearly shows you do not understand domestic electrical systems. You are not qualified to give advice so please desist. Should anyone follow your advice and suffer subsequent harm would you be happy to be sued for compensation and/or criminal charge?
I’m sure Philip would agree that whatever scheme you do, have the system designed and installed by a qualified electrician.
Hi ilma, no electrician would ever pass such a connection system so I seriously doubt Philip actually has a clue what he is talking about nor would involve anyone qualified.
Just to clarify. I have a degree in physics. I have taught Physics. Having lived in the developing world I have a good knowledge of domestic wiring.
I have used my method several times both there and in the UK.
The obsession with ‘qualified’ is overkill anyway. I assume those who are worried get a qualified electrician to change a light bulb.
To repeat: turn off at your fuse box. The house is now isolated from the grid. Turn on generator and plug it in. When power is restored (either being informed it is or observation of neighbouring houses), turn off and unplug generator. Turn main switch back on. Not rocket science.
Every time you get behind the wheel of a car you are risking both your life and those of the public; a far more serious risk.
So just to clarify you have precisely zero qualifications in the appropriate subject.
Presumably in your “wisdom” you considered the different earthing systems involved between portable generators and mains? And of course you consider yourself infallible, you, nor anybody around you, could ever possibly inadvertently restore the mains switch with the generator supplying thereby endangering the lives of those working to restore the grid? Who cares about them eh? Seemingly not you as you consider just throwing a trip acceptable – it isn’t.
You are a very dangerous fool. There are good reasons for both safety devices and procedures to be carried out by qualified people. That you should deny the requirements is arrogant, dangerous stupidity and risks the lives of others. Not very reverend are you?
I have used my method several times both there and in the UK.
There are plenty of aspects of living in the developing world that have no place in the UK, particularly if it’s reasonably practicable to install cost-effective hardware that eliminates a potentially fatal hazard created by a human forgetting to do something.
Done that , I have had occasion to use it , yesterday was the last time as we were subject to a power cut for 4 hours
Im not really out in the sticks, just at the top of a narrow country lane that ends with 4 dwellings , yet there are regular outages for no apparent reason
I lived in what could be now be termed a 2nd world country for 18 years until 97 , I cannot recall a single power outage during that time , however said country has not invested in new infrastructure in 30 years ,and been subject to immigration, and corruption off the scale and now suffers ” load shedding ” daily as a result of little baseload power available
I feel I am in some sort of groundhog day
“The warning comes amid a political row between Westminster and Paris over who will pay for cost overruns on the long-delayed Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor, which was scheduled to open in 2025 at the time of approval but will now not come online until at least 2031.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has demanded “an equitable sharing of costs” but the UK Government insisted the EDF-led development must be privately financed”
In other words, the UK will pay, and pay dearly for this delay. It is incredible that in any other sphere of business, a price is agreed for construction, it is known as a fixed price – build below this and the extra profit from the saving is the construction companies, over-run and the construction company takes the hit.
EDF are looking for a double hit on Hinckley Point, the have “fixed” the price of power at an all time high which will hurt the UK whilst bringing additional revenue to its owners – France (After the recent offer, the French Government will hold not only 97.69% of EDF shares but also at least 98.04% of voting rights, the company said. They will also have 99.97% ownership of the circulating OCEANE bonds), but having agreed a price which they knew was impossible, successive rounds of renegotiation have always ended up with the UK picking up the tab, which no risk to EDF.
We need to start immediate construction of SMR’s, a minimum of twenty to ensure a continuous supply of power, the problem is that none of the political Pygmies we currently have in the CONsocialists, Labour, ilLiberals, Greens etc are brave enough to commit to construction, and when they do, it will be too little, too late, the power cuts will have started.
Electrical Power is Everything, without a modern, civilised Country falls apart – no light, no heat, no refrigeration, no recharging of mobiles/laptops/tablets, no medical equipment unless the relevant hospital or surgery has its own diesel generators – then we will see the true colours of our cowardly politicians as they wring their hands and say that “at least we are saving the planet by sacrificing the population”.
At least lemmings were driven off a cliff edge by mean spirited documentary producers, we are being driven off a cliff edge by weak politicians.
In other words, the UK will pay, and pay dearly for this delay.
There are probably other posters on here with much greater knowledge than me of the contractual arrangments for HPC, but it’s almost as if it’s a form of “Design and Build” contract where the contractor undertakes design after contract award, which is not unusual for smaller construction contracts involving traditional, well-understood, relatively simple technologies.
Hi Micky, there are four operational EPR reactors, Taishan 1 (the first) & 2 in China, Olkiluoto in Finland and Flammanville in France. The excuse for being a new design is no longer credible particularly as the design is only a safety uprated version of an old design.
The finance model is a long term Contract for Difference giving a guaranteed and inflation linked “strike price” with nothing being paid until generation. It’s kinda tough luck on the French that it is taking them so long to get this design right – a bit late of them to try on renegotiating the contract now.
Contrast this to Kepco and their successful construction in the UAE (with no previous country expertise) of 4 of their APR1400 https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/united-arab-emirates.aspx
Just $20 billion to Kepco for 5.6GW of capacity whilst HPC is just 3.2GW and EDF are already in for way more with nothing even close to being finished. A rather poor advert for French technology.
Thanks Ray.
My limited understanding is that EDF are claiming additional £££ primarily due to “post-contract award” design changes at HPC, but I have no certainty regarding that. I also have minimal knowledge regarding the origin of these design changes. I need to get reading !
As the decades pass, the Sizewell B construction project increasingly becomes a symbol of competent design, competent construction and competent cost control.
Micky R: A month or two back there was an open letter from the head of the HPC project wherein he claimed there had been over 7000 “design changes” required by the Brits which, iirc, resulted in 25% more steelwork and 20% more concrete.
Quite agree with you about Sizewell B – if only we had gone on and built the other 7 plants that were originally planned! I worked for Westinghouse Nuclear at the time the contract was being negotiated, led by the boss of my department, although I was not involved. As well as being a successful project, I believe the plant has exceeded its performance figures as well.
…. resulted in 25% more steelwork and 20% more concrete.
At the risk of stating the obvious, that level of design change should have been agreed before the contract was awarded, or the contract should clearly set out in detail a process by which the costs associated with such a change “post-contract award” are shared between the “Employer” and the Contractor.
I’ve not had involvement “Employer side” with the procurement process of any multi-billion £££ contract of the size of HPC, but questions should certainly be asked of the HPC procurement process and the procurement team. The stated cost uplift and the time delays for HPC should ensure that it’s “never again” in the UK, which would logically be a “green light” for SMR.
Micky R; there’s a more fundamental question….Why do we need so many changes? It’s not as if the French don’t have any nuclear experience FFS! My suspicion is that much of this, if not all, will be a combination of Not-Invented-Here, job justification and regulatory overshoot.
It’s a sad inditement of our nuclear “industry” that, after all these years, there are problems with acceptance of other countries’ standards. It’s also quite ironic given that the key components will be manufactured abroad.
Why do we need so many changes?
I don’t know the answer to that, but I have sat on a couple of “code committees” over the decades (engineering sector, but not specifically nuclear) where the drive for international standardisation was strong.
As you are probably aware, the UK was not permitted to have access to US nuclear technology following WW2, this led to the UK developing the “gas-cooled” route for nuclear power, which culminated in the AGR design and the shambolic design/construction process at Dungeness B, which probably still haunts nuclear procurement in the UK.
if only we had gone on and built the other 7 plants that were originally planned!
Was it 7 ?! I can recall the 1990s proposals for Sizewell C (twin PWR) and Sizewell D, what were the other locations ? Bradwell B would have made sense.
Hi again Micky, the SNUPPS PWR units in addition to Sizewell B were originally planned to be Hinkley Point C as a twin unit(now the EPR under construction) , 2 units as Wylfa B ( adjacent the last built Magnox plant) , a second unit at Sizewell as the C station plus a further 2 at the new site of Druridge Bay in Northumberland.
There was also a proposal for a new site near Exmoor alongside a new pumped storage hydro plant!
Bradwell was also being considered and would likely have proceeded if any of the others had gone ahead. Oldbury was also in the running but at the time was considered to over develop the south west section of the grid.
Of course in those days additional plant up in Megawatt alley were not considered necessary with all the coal plants there.
^^
I thought I’d replied to Ray’s post above re PWRs to follow Sizewell B, but who knows where that reply went (?) 🙂
The CEGB had its problems, but a lack of substantial construction programmes was not usually one of its faults. We could now be living in a UK with – perhaps – 25GW of nuclear; and if the construction cost for the remaining PWRs matched Sizewell B then this would be at a “bargain price”.
The problem with the SMRs is that our moronic government is holding a competition for the design and not just telling Rolls Royce to just get on with it. EU legislation may have prevented this in the past and I suspect that this legislation has continued in force. Who really believes that other countries would have abided by this in a time of need. I guess our morons still can’t comprehend that we ware approaching an energy emergency.
Surely there will not be a problem as the interconnectors, mainly from France, will provide all we need, just like we have imported 25% of our needs on several days last week. I wander what the justification is – probably its all renewable and the ESO cow tow!
The French can’t lose. If the project takes longer they still get paid for the extra work and they can sell more of their surplus nuclear generated electricity at the same time.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-houthis-hit-underwater-communications-cables-1001472165
Does the UK have any enemies who might cut the cables. Or, nature can cut cables. Power generated locally does not have as many long transmission lines that can be cut.
Hi popes, the Interconnector France Angleterre 1 from Gravelines to Sellindge has gone down on a number of occasions for differing reasons.
One time a few years back a ship’s sea anchor dragged up half the capacity in a storm.
On another an “unexpalined” fire at the Sellindge converter station cut it off. Just before last Christmas half the capacity went down and nearly took down the entire grid – poster “It Doesn’t Add Up ” is still trying to get to the bottom of exactly what happened and why our wonderful “battery back ups” didn’t actually work just when needed. I have my own theory but that’s for later.
Interconnector cables, their converter stations and grid connection points are actually notoriously unreliable. Furthermore they are unable to offer most grid balancing services and, in and of themselves, represent a major security risk to their interconnected grids……..and there there is the terrorist aspect!
A very complicated, not understood, at great risk, mess. If any conflict occurs, it is difficult to protect generating facilities and grids inside political boundaries and impossible to protect generating facilities and grids outside political boundaries. It appears that conflicts are always occurring, some much worse than others. We need regional grids with reliable dispatchable power, grids that can work independently so that the whole system does not fail due to serious issues in other regions. Regions with the worst problems can receive aid from regions with less problems. System wide outages prevent regions from being as capable of providing aid to other regions. More and more, regions are closing reliable power generation near and relying more and more on power generation from further and further away where they do not even know anyone there that even cares about them, other than the payments for power.
“Delays to French-built nuclear power stations will leave the UK at risk of blackouts by 2028, new research has warned.“
Complete cobblers! The author of this article is deliberately deflecting blame. The causes of the UK being at risk of blackouts are multiple and NOT caused by “French-built nuclear power stations”
Frankly a crap article.
Right! The proper question is how did we get into this ridiculous mess?
The causes of the UK being at risk of blackouts are multiple
The primary cause is the lack of coal-fired construction following on from Drax (1980s) and the lack of nuclear construction following on from Sizewell B (1990s).
It is a crap article but at least it puts out there the uncertainty around supply of electricity and will get many people worried and questioning whats happening.
Up to a point but it immediately draws the “blame it on nuclear” argument and thus we need more renewables. As Micky R points out we actually need large scale, transmission grid connected dispatchable power plants of whatever dependable fuel source be it nuclear, oil, coal, gas etc.
We had that for 50 years but all good things come to end………………
Time to publicly plan for blackouts. Might wake people up a bit.
https://www.cfact.org/2024/02/20/planning-for-climate-blackouts/
Climate policy blackouts that is.
FEMA are apparently about to release an updated version of their gassifier plans. A modernised version of these
https://www.build-a-gasifier.com/fema-gasifier-plans/
Now what does that tell us?
If you think connecting generators to the (isolated) mains wiring might be dangerous, Rube Goldberg gasifiers are the very devil incarnate !
Climate change is causing perfect storms to be more frequent.
The T-4 capacity auction ran yesterday. Full results here:
https://www.emrdeliverybody.com/Capacity%20Markets%20Document%20Library/T-4%20DY%202027-28%20Provisional%20Results%20Report.pdf
Mostly, it was existing capacity signing up to be still available, including nuclear expected to close before 2030. The new capacity consisted of 1.1GW of Demand Side Response (paid for power cuts), 427MW of reciprocating engines (gas or diesel), and a load of short duration batteries. DSR and batteries may work if you are only concnerned about meeting rush hour peak demand. But they will be useless in extended Dunkelflaute.