Just how much will the Hinkley nuclear power plant cost? Depends who you ask. In a recently published spreadsheet outlining the cost of projects in the UK’s infrastructure pipeline, the Treasury said the Hinkley project could end up costing more than £26 billion. That’s considerably more than previous government estimates, and it kind of contradicts what EDF – the French energy firm actually building the project – has been saying. But fear not, government sources say it was just an honest mistake, a simple Excel calculation gone awry. Here’s what Tom Lafford, policy adviser at E3G, the think-tank that spotted the spreadsheet, told Energydesk: “There’s nothing surprising about this multi-billion pound accounting error and that’s exactly the problem. “The Government knows that the alternatives to Hinkley C can be built quickly and cheaply; it’s all there in their Smart Power Report. The longer they wait the more we all pay.”
Energydesk 3rd June 2016 read more »