A Generic Design Assessment (GDA) will now be carried out on the ABWR the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said in a statement. The process is expected to take between two and four years, GEH has previously said.
“The ABWR is a proven reactor design, which has been constructed to time and budget at four locations in Japan, and is also licensed in the USA and Taiwan. We look forward to making sustained progress with the regulators in the months ahead,” said Masaharu Hanyu, vice president and executive officer, CEO, Nuclear Power Systems, Power Systems Company, Hitachi, Ltd. Hitachi, Ltd. acquired Horizon from RWE and E.ON at the end of November 2012. It plans to build three ca.1300 MW units at each of Horizon’s sites at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury, South Gloucestershire, with the first unit becoming operational in the first half of the 2020s. The UK energy minister John Hayes said that he is asking the ONR and the Environment Agency to conduct a “through examination” of the ABWR reactor design. Hitachi has previously said that it estimates the GDA process would take between two to four years.
