Britain's Horizon Nuclear Power said Friday that it had created a joint venture called Menter Newydd that would be the lead build team for the Wylfa Newydd project. “Menter Newydd, meaning New Venture in Welsh, is a joint venture of Hitachi Nuclear Energy Europe, Ltd., Bechtel Management Company, Ltd., and JGC Corporation (UK) Ltd., and will be responsible for the construction of Wylfa Newydd, overseen by Horizon Nuclear Power,” the company said.
New Horizon said the team members had been involved in more than 170 nuclear power construction projects, as well as a huge array of complex infrastructure “mega-projects.” Hitachi Nuclear Energy Europe has, on its own, a 50-year history of Boiling Water Reactor deployment, including four (4) Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWRs), the technology that will be deployed at Wylfa Newydd.
The team also includes Bechtel, which last year completed construction on the Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee, which represents the last completed nuclear power station granted an operating license in the United States.
Project Director for Menter Newydd at Hitachi Malcolm Twist said the team was balanced and strong. He also said the project would move forward “firming up relationships with our main sub-contractors – many of them British – very soon.”
The technology design for the ABWR has been in development at Hitachi-GE, under Horizon contract, for more than three years, the World Nuclear Association reported. The Generic Design Assessment for the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.
While site work is already underway, full scale construction on the $14.4 billion project is expected to begin by 2020. It is expected that 8,000 to 10,000 jobs will be created during the construction phase.