Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Welcome to Hinkley Point C. I'm standing in front of the reactor building for Unit
00:09 One. It's the heart of the first nuclear power station being built in Britain since
00:14 1995. Hinkley Point C is one of Britain's biggest acts in the fight against climate
00:20 change and essential for the country's long-term energy security. With wind and solar, it'll
00:26 get us off our dependency on imported and expensive fossil fuels. It'll serve the country
00:31 to the next century and meet 7% of the country's electricity demand. Just before Christmas,
00:38 we lifted the huge dome into place to close the building. That means we can install the
00:43 first reactor later this year and get on with fitting the pipes, cables and equipment. The
00:49 majority of that equipment has been delivered and is ready to be fitted. We've put the dome
00:55 on two years later than planned in the schedule we started with. Around 15 months of that
01:01 delay was due to the global pandemic. So beyond COVID, we've lost nine months since we began.
01:09 That's not perfect, but for the first nuclear plant to be built in Britain for a generation,
01:15 it's not too bad either. Restarting the British nuclear industry has been hard. We've had
01:22 to train a new workforce, teach suppliers how to build nuclear, and like any other developer,
01:28 change our design to meet British regulations. That means 7,000 design changes, 35% more
01:35 steel and 25% more concrete. Like other big infrastructure projects, we found civil construction
01:42 slower than we'd hoped and faced inflation, labour and material shortages. The good news
01:49 is that our pioneering work has rebuilt an industry which will serve the country and
01:54 its nuclear programme for decades to come. It's very clear that once we learn something,
02:00 there is a big improvement in performance when we do it again. At Hinkley Point, we're
02:04 building an identical second unit, and it's typically 20 to 30% faster. As someone who's
02:10 been in the industry for almost 40 years, I can tell you that repeating a design is
02:15 always easier than building a one-off. Now looking ahead, we've finished the design work
02:21 in detail for the fit-out phase. That gives us a much clearer idea of how much time we
02:27 need to do the work and exactly what we need to make. Finding suppliers and starting manufacturing
02:34 for the fit-out phase has also taken longer than we'd hoped. But now all that is ready,
02:39 with factories in places like Gateshead and Broughton in North Wales. We also have experience
02:45 from our completed EPRs around the world. This tells us that our first unit will be
02:50 in operation around the end of the decade, when our existing power stations are coming
02:55 to the end of their operating lives. Running the project for longer and rising costs for
03:01 civil construction means the power station will cost more. But none of this affects the
03:06 British taxpayers or consumers. And even with today's announcements, both Hinkley Point
03:12 C and Sideswell C will leave British bill payers better off in the long run. So what
03:18 does this mean for Britain's nuclear plans? It means we have a complete design approved
03:24 for use in Britain and the chance to repeat it with teams and suppliers that have the
03:30 know-how and are already at work. The benefits of repeating an identical design give Sideswell
03:37 C a massive advantage. Our detailed design gives Sideswell C certainty that we didn't
03:43 have at the start. Manufacturing of our pipes and cables is underway and we need to let
03:50 our workers carry on that good work. Earlier this month the Prime Minister launched a nuclear
03:57 roadmap. He said that nuclear is the right long-term decision for Britain, the perfect
04:03 antidote for our energy challenges. We know what we are doing here matters. It matters
04:09 for energy security, it matters for the environment and it matters for our customers at home and
04:15 in business. It is creating jobs and re-skilling an industry for the long term. Thousands of
04:23 people are here working hard to get this job done and we are determined to build a power
04:28 station to a quality the country can be proud of. It will serve Britain for many decades
04:34 to come and it has made it possible for others to follow.
04:38 [END]