The European Commission has stepped in for a second time, clearing the way for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project that is still awaiting a green light from the primary project team at French utility EDF.
The European Commission has already approved of a plan to guarantee EDF with a minimum price for electricity generated at the two-unit plant that has a preliminary price tag of $25.7 billion. On Friday, the Commission's anti-trust regulator said that the joint partnership between EDF and the state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGNP) did not violate anti-trust laws, “given the small market shares held by both companies in the U.K. and the presence of other competitors,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
While CGNP is on board for a third of the financing, EDF is still seeking partners to help finance the rest of the project. In the meantime, two key EDF officers, the director of the project and the company's chief financial officer, have stepped down in recent weeks.
CFO Thomas Piquemal resigned this week on concerns that the price of the project would leave EDF financially unstable.
While many in Britain are growing impatient with the delays on the go-ahead decision, Piquemal, reportedly, was advocating for EDF to postpone the decision by another three years.