UK to Eases Rules for Nuclear Plants in Bid to Boost Growth

(Bloomberg) -- The UK will make it easier to approve and build nuclear plants, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer seeks to boost economic growth and bring down power bills, while also pursuing ambitious decarbonization targets.

An overhaul of planning rules will give developers more freedom over where they can build new plants — up to now restricted to eight government-designated sites such as Hinkley Point and Sizewell. The changes should help in the deployment of small modular reactors, as well as gigawatt-scale projects.

Britain’s economy and consumers were crippled by the energy crisis triggered by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and high power bills are still a major grievance three years later. At the same time, the need to back up wind and solar generation has revived interest in nuclear plants as a reliable energy source that doesn’t emit carbon.  

“This country hasn’t built a nuclear power station in decades. We’ve been let down, and left behind,” Starmer said in a statement announcing the new regulations. “Our energy security has been hostage to Putin for too long, with British prices skyrocketing at his whims.”

The government is looking at parts of the economy where it can generate growth, and energy is one sector it has focused on. That also includes a push to expand solar and wind generation to achieve a clean power system by 2030. Nuclear power will play an important role when winds are slow and the skies are clouded. 

Alongside changes in rules over where plants can be built, as previously reported by Bloomberg, the government wants to lower the costs of projects and speed them up.

Rules around nuclear designs will allow models approved in other countries to move faster and make them less costly to replicated in the UK, according to the statement.

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