The terms of the 2009 sale of the nuclear stations agreed by the Department with EDFE placed a disproportionate amount of risk for meeting future decommissioning costs on the taxpayer. The negotiations surrounding the sale of the stations to EDFE in 2009 were focused on maintaining operations, with less attention paid to meeting the costs of decommissioning. Although EDFE successfully extended the lives of all the AGR stations, which bolstered the UK’s capacity to generate electricity, there ...

The terms of the 2009 sale of the nuclear stations agreed by the Department with EDFE placed a disproportionate amount of risk for meeting future decommissioning costs on the taxpayer. The negotiations surrounding the sale of the stations to EDFE in 2009 were focused on maintaining operations, with less attention paid to meeting the costs of decommissioning. Although EDFE successfully extended the lives of all the AGR stations, which bolstered the UK’s capacity to generate electricity, there was no requirement to extend the contributions made by the operator to the Fund despite increasing decommissioning costs. The history of the AGR stations Type: conclusion | Number: 3 | Response status: not_addressed Government response: 3.1 The department agrees with the Committee’s recommendation and will respond by August 2022. Target implementation date: August 2022 3.2 The funded decommissioning plan (FDP) policies in place to support the development of new nuclear stations already build upon