French auditor recommends EDF to postpone investment decision for British Sizewell

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The French auditor has said that French nuclear company EDF should not make a final investment decision on the UK’s Sizewell C reactor project until it has reduced its involvement in its other UK project, Hinkley Point C.

The Cour des comptes also said that it was state EDF must ensure that all international projects are profitable and must not delay the program of new nuclear projects in France.

The auditors’ comments on Tuesday came just hours after the Financial Times reported that the construction cost of the Sizewell C project in Suffolk was 1.5% expected to reach £40 billiondouble the estimate in 2020.

The new figure reflects rising construction costs as well as the impact of delays and cost overruns at its sister site Hinkley in Somerset.

A delay in a final investment decision by EDF could delay the project even further and cause costs to rise even further.

The UK government and EDF, Sizewell C’s original backers, have been trying to raise billions of pounds from new investors, with a final investment decision now being delayed until at least the spring.

Asked about the FT report, Cour de Comptes said the increase seemed “logical” given cost overruns on other projects of this type.

The Cour des comptes also recommended that any final investment decisions for EPR2 programs – the technology on which Hinkley Point C and other new reactors are based – should be deferred until funding is secured and detailed studies evaluating the projects have been carried out.

This could lead to a more cautious approach by EDF towards six more EPR2 reactors in France, announced by French President Emmanuel Macron in 2022. The Court of Auditors estimated the bill for these systems at almost 80 billion euros.

The Cour des comptes also criticized the long-delayed Flamanville project in northern France, which recently began sending electricity to the grid, 12 years behind schedule.

The Court of Auditors’ president, Pierre Moscovici, said that based on the available data he was forecasting a “moderate profitability” for the project, adding that EDF had refused to provide him with information on the plant’s profitability. It was predicted that the energy company would never recover its capital investments.

The concerns come as in France obliged to build Six additional reactors are expected to be built domestically in the coming decades to meet electricity demand – an ambitious and costly goal that critics say will be nearly impossible to achieve.

In the UK, questions about Sizewell’s future will add to concerns about the UK government’s strategy for a nuclear energy revival, which aims to produce a constant “base load” as the electricity system moves to a much greater reliance on intermittent renewable energy .

The first new power station was due to be Hinkley Point C, which was originally scheduled for completion in 2017 but was later pushed back to 2025.

Early last year, EDF admitted the Somerset project would not be completed until 2029 at the earliest, with costs rising to up to £46bn.

The French company then blamed the recent problems on the complexity of installing electromechanical systems and complicated piping.

EDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Cour des comptes report.