NIA Response to the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee’s ‘National planning for energy infrastructure’ Inquiry

The NIA is the trade association and representative body for the civil nuclear industry in the UK. We represent more than 300 companies operating across all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, including the current and prospective operators of nuclear power stations, international designers, and vendors of nuclear power stations, and those engaged in decommissioning, waste management and nuclear liabilities management. Members also include nuclear equipment suppliers, engineering and construction firms, nuclear research organisations, and legal, financial and consultancy companies.

Due to the diversity of our membership, our views in this submission will cover high-level, industrywide matters. Our members may choose to make their own detailed submissions.

Executive summary

We welcome the alignment of the Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy (EN-1) with the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan and the objective of reaching Net Zero. As recognised by the Government in EN-1, nuclear “provides the UK with continuous, reliable, safe low-carbon power” and “additional nuclear beyond Hinkley Point C will be needed to meet our energy and Net Zero objectives”.1 We welcomed the inclusion of nuclear in the Critical National Priority (CNP) policy intended to reduce delays in deployment of low carbon infrastructure. We urge Government to streamline the consenting process for nuclear projects, and balance considerations of environmental risks versus benefits in the context of climate change to support nuclear deployment in the leadup to Net Zero by 2050. The leading cause of habitat loss and biodiversity loss is climate change, so it is imperative of deploy low carbon energy at speed and at scale to protect the natural environment. The National Policy Statements must reflect this reality in balancing the benefits of low carbon energy with the local and often temporary environmental impacts of deployment.

Click here to view our response.

Further Information

The NIA is happy to provide more context, or any clarifications desired on the content of our response and to ask our members where appropriate for additional information that may be useful.

Please contact Elisabeth Roden, Policy Analyst for the Nuclear Industry Association, at [email protected] to do this.