Britain’s first mini-nuclear plant should get the go-ahead by the end of this decade, the energy secretary said yesterday as he confirmed a competition to award up to £20 billion in taxpayer funding.
Grant Shapps said he was aiming for a final investment decision on the first “small modular reactor” by the end of 2029 and he would expect to see the plant built within the 2030s. “I hope in the early 2030s,” he said.
Shapps was speaking as he officially launched Great British Nuclear, the new arms-length government body tasked with shepherding in a “new nuclear age” in Britain.
He said that the government had learnt the lessons of the past, so would now be taking a more active approach as the “developer-led”
