Today both teams said that they had signed early works agreements with Horizon, the joint venture between Eon and RWE npower planning the new power station at Wylfa in Angelsey.

Now the Westinghouse consortium team of Laing O’Rourke, Shaw Group and Toshiba will work up specific site designs using the AP1000 design, while the French Areva group works up proposals based on the European pressurized reactor design.

Once the generic design assessment has been concluded by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Horizon will plump for the reactor type to proceed with by the end of the year.

Horizon said it aims to deliver a total of around 6 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity from two power stations by 2025, at a cost of around £15 billion.
The other site is at Oldbury, Gloucestershire.