EDF knew about Hinkley Point delay before board meeting

Energy supplier EDF, which wants to build the Hinkley Point nuclear reactor, knew that the UK wanted to take more time to review the project, before voting to go ahead with the plan, reported Reuters.

On July 28 the French state-owned EDF voted to go ahead with the £18bn nuclear power plant by 10 votes to seven. Hours later, the British government delayed going ahead with the project and said it will make a decision in early autumn.

Officials from the UK, EDF and China, who were investing about £6bn in the project, had expected to sign contracts the following day on 29 July and instead returned home.

Reuters reported that EDF chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy knew about the decision to delay Hinkley Point C when he called a board meeting on 21 July.

In an email to the energy supplier’s executive committee he said the French government had “warned us that in light of her very recent arrival, the new British prime minister has asked for ‘a few days’ before deciding on the project”.

Levy was warned on the night before the meeting on the 27 July and he knew that the contract ceremony planned for the following day would not take place, which puts to bed the notion that the energy supplier was caught off guard by the decision by May.

"When the board voted, on the afternoon of July 28, we (management) therefore knew that the ceremony would not take place the next day."

Theresa May, in one of her first trips as prime minister, visited president Francois Hollande in Paris. The Financial Times reported on the 21 July she told Hollande in person she needed to review the project and postpone the decision by several weeks. She told Hollande again on the 27 July over the telephone.