October 09, 2019

Campaigners from Sizewell, Hinkley Point and Bradwell nuclear sites will travel to London to join consumer group SumOfUs to protest the government’s proposal to subsidise new nuclear plants by hiking energy bills.

They will deliver a petition to the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy signed by over 35,000, calling on the government to scrap plans to subsidise the nuclear industry through a “regulated asset base” funding model. Under the model, consumers would be forced to pay a surcharge for new nuclear projects, such as Sizewell C in Suffolk and Bradwell B in Essex.

What: Delivery of petition calling on government to scrap plans for energy bill surcharge to fund new nuclear plants

Where: BEIS, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1

When: 11.30am, Friday 11 October 2019

Who: Community groups Theberton & Eastbridge Action Group on Sizewell, Together Against Sizewell C, Blackwater Against New Nuclear (BANNG, Bradwell), Stop Hinkley, the B1122 Action Group and Minsmere Levels Stakeholder Group, and consumer group SumOfUs.

More info: BEIS quietly pushed its consultation on the controversial RAB model out in mid July. The scheme has attracted significant criticism, especially in the light of EDF’s announced £3 billion overspend at Hinkley Point, to which the BBC’s Simon Jack responded “Making a forty-year bet on another nuclear station with a funding model that exposes consumers to those overruns, is a big call for any government to make.”  The consultation closes on 14 October.

Notes:

View the petition here: https://actions.sumofus.org/a/no-energy-bill-surcharge-for-new-nuclear