Nuclear bidding enters third week

The Government’s auction of land on which the first wave of new nuclear plants will be built is still going strong as bidders battle to secure a stake in the UK’s £40bn newbuild nuclear programme.

The auction, which was expected to last no more than seven days, is in its third week. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is selling three sites at Bradwell in Essex, Wylfa in North Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire.

The NDA declined to reveal the identity or number of bidders but said reports of three bidders and of bids upto £200m were “inaccurate.”

Likely bidders include a joint venture of EON and RWE, French energy giant EDF, a consortium of Iberdrola, GDF Suez and Scottish and Southern Energy, Swedish utility Vattenfall and US company Energy Solutions.

The NDA welcomed the stiff competition, which is driving up the final price.

A spokesman said: "This is all to the taxpayers good because the proceeds from the sale will go to the NDA and put towards the cost of decommissioning existing nuclear sites in the UK." 
The spokesman said the cost of decommissioning the UK’s old nuclear sites is estimated to be around £73bn in total.

The auction will not finish until more than 24 hours have passed without any bids for any of the sites being made. Bidding periods run from 10am to 12am and from 2pm to 4pm each day.