Wylfa nuclear power station plans go ahead, creating jobs on Anglesey

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

The Wylfa plant, on the north coast of the Welsh island, will have the UK’s first three small modular reactors (SMRs), although the site could potentially house up to eight.

Work will begin next year with the goal of generating power by the mid-2030s.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Britain was once a world leader in nuclear energy, but that “years of neglect and inertia have meant places like Anglesey have been let down and left behind. Today, that changes.”

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

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

Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan said she had been “pressing the case at every opportunity to get the incredible benefits from Wylfa”.

SMRs operate similarly to large reactors, using a nuclear reaction to generate heat that produces electricity, but they are a fraction of the size, with about a third of the output generated.

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

Speaking on BBC Radio Wales Breakfast, Miliband added that they hope to “work with local universities to ensure that there are local providers of skills and training opportunities, so that local people get these jobs.”

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

Llinos Medi, MP for Ynys Môn, the Welsh name for Anglesey, said it was a “game changer” for the area “but only if local people see real and lasting benefits”.

Mims Davies MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, said it will bring much-needed jobs and investment, but “the current plan will only generate a fraction of the energy that a Gigawatt-powered plant would generate”.

Anthony Slaughter, leader of the Welsh Green Party, said the project was “a costly distraction from the clean, fast and cheap renewable energy we already have at our disposal”.

He added that there was a need for “rapid and ambitious deployment of solar, wind and wave energy that creates jobs and reduces energy bills.”

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) Wales said the plant would provide 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-scale nuclear power plant, similar to those being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk, which can power the equivalent of six million homes.

The company will report in fall 2026, officials said.

It is unclear whether the SMR plans, which are smaller and simpler to build, rule out Wylfa after the previous UK Conservative government designated it as a preferred location in 2024.

Professor Simon Middleburgh, director of Bangor University’s Nuclear Futures Institute, said SMRs would be “built modularly in factories and sent to site to be assembled like an Ikea chair”.

There were “a few more hurdles to overcome,” he warned, from getting regulatory approval, building the factories needed to build the SMRs, and training the workforce that will run them.

Opponents of the project point to the fact that a long-term storage facility for the UK’s nuclear waste has not yet been agreed and say what Anglesey needs is investment in renewable energy projects (wind, wave and tidal).

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

The government sees them as a safe, reliable, affordable and low-carbon energy system and is convinced that, with investment, SMRs will create thousands of jobs and boost manufacturing.

Wylfa beat off competition from a site at Oldbury in Gloucestershire, with the Rolls-Royce-designed reactors subject to final contracts, expected later this year.

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

The decision to opt for small modular reactors at Wylfa was criticized by US ambassador Warren Stephens, who said he was “extremely disappointed”.

He had urged ministers to commit to a large-scale plant and US company Westinghouse had reportedly submitted plans for a new gigawatt station at the site.

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

The old Wylfa nuclear power station was closed in 2015 and previous plans for a large-scale replacement fell through in 2021.

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

There is a huge political component to the announcement, with Labor leaders in Westminster keen to show they are serious about big investments in infrastructure projects.

In Wales, the First Minister has been pushing hard for Wylfa, with the announcement coming six months before the Senedd election.

Eluned Morgan has been trying to strike a balance: differentiating the Welsh party from British Labor, while pushing for additional funding, greater devolution of powers and big investment announcements from his UK colleagues.

It certainly achieved the latter, although many other issues, such as reforming the way Wales is financed and the devolution of the Crown Estate – which owns much of the Welsh coast and is vital for future wind energy – remain unresolved.