Wylfa nuclear power plant plans go ahead, creating Anglesey jobs

A first-of-its-kind nuclear power station will be built on Anglesey, bringing up to 3,000 jobs and billions of pounds of investment.

The plant at Wilfa, on the north coast of Wales, will install the UK's first three small modular reactors (SMRs), although the site could potentially accommodate up to eight.

Work is due to begin next year, with the aim of generating electricity by the mid-2030s.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the UK was once a world leader in nuclear energy, but “years of neglect and inertia have left places like Anglesey disillusioned and left behind. Today everything is changing.”

The project, which could power around three million homes, will be built by state-owned Great British Energy-Nuclear and supported by a £2.5 billion investment from the UK government.

Visiting a further education college in north Wales on Thursday, Sir Keir said its development would create jobs for “decades to come” and that work would begin “virtually immediately”.

Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan, who stated that she “has insisted at every opportunity on the incredible advantages of Wylfa.”

SMRs operate similarly to large reactors.using a nuclear reaction to generate heat that produces electricity, but their size is only a small part, accounting for about a third of the power generated.

Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, called the announcement “exciting” and said Britain was in a race for new reactors.

Talking about BBC Radio Wales BreakfastMiliband added that they hope to “work with local colleges to make sure there are local skills providers and apprenticeship opportunities so local people get those jobs.”

Simon Bowen, chairman of Great British Energy-Nuclear, called it “a historic moment for the UK.”

Llinos Medi, MP for Inis Mon, the Welsh name for Anglesey, said it would be a “game changer” for the region, “but only if local people see real and long-term benefits”.

Mims Davies MP, shadow secretary of state for Wales, said it would bring much-needed jobs and investment, but “the current plan will generate only a fraction of the energy that a gigawatt-scale power station could produce.”

Anthony Slaughter, leader of the Green Party of Wales, said the project was an “expensive distraction from the clean, fast and cheap renewable energy sources already available to us”.

He added that what is needed is “rapid and ambitious deployment of solar, wind and wave energy that will create jobs and reduce energy bills.”

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) Wales said the plant would bring a “once in a generation” boost to jobs, supply chains and regional infrastructure.

Great British Energy-Nuclear has also been tasked with identifying potential sites across the UK for another large nuclear power station, similar to those being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk, which could power the equivalent of six million homes.

According to officials, the company will report by the fall of 2026.

It is unclear whether the plans rule out SMR, which is smaller and easier to build, after the previous UK Conservative government identified Wilfa as the preferred site in 2024.

Professor Simon Middleburgh, director of Bangor University's Institute for Nuclear Futures, said SMRs would be “built modularly in factories and delivered to a site where they would be assembled like an Ikea chair.”

He warned that there are “several more hurdles to overcome, from gaining regulatory approval to building the plants needed to build the SMRs and training the workforce that will operate them.”

Opponents of the project point to the fact that long-term storage for the UK's nuclear waste has yet to be agreed and say investment in renewable energy – wind, wave and tidal – is what Anglesey needs.

Dylan Morgan, from the campaign group People Against Wylfa-B, said the proposed SMRs were an “unjustifiably large development of an unproven technology”.

The government views them as a safe, reliable, affordable and low-carbon energy system and is confident that SMR investment will create thousands of jobs and stimulate manufacturing.

Wylfa beat out rivals at the Oldbury site in Gloucestershire, where the reactors were designed by Rolls-Royce, subject to final contracts expected later this year.

The UK government said the plant would help ensure energy independence.

The decision to opt for small modular reactors at Wilf was criticized by US Ambassador Warren Stevens, who said he was “extremely disappointed”.

He called on ministers to commit to building a large-scale power station, with US firm Westinghouse reportedly unveiling plans to build a new gigawatt plant at the site.

Downing Street said the decision to build a power station in Wales “does not close the door” on the US manufacturer working on a future project.

The old Vilf nuclear power plant was shut down in 2015, and previous plans for a large-scale replacement failed in 2021.

The company behind the scheme, Japanese industrial giant Hitachi, cited rising costs and a failure to reach an agreement with the UK government over funding.

There is a huge political component to this announcement: the Labor Party leadership in Westminster is keen to demonstrate that it is serious about major investment in infrastructure projects.

In Wales, the First Minister has been pushing hard for Wylfa's support, a statement made six months before the Senedd election.

Eluned Morgan is trying to find a balance: separating the Welsh party from Britain's Labor Party while pushing for additional funding, further devolution and major investment announcements from its British counterparts.

It certainly has the latter, although a host of other issues such as Welsh funding reform and the transfer of the Crown estate, which owns much of Wales' coastline and is vital to the future of wind power, remain unresolved.