Securing suitable sites

Scottish and Southern Energy (

) and

have announced plans to jointly acquire land that will enable them to participate in Britain’s nuclear build programme.

The joint venture’s initial aim is to secure sites that are suitable for nuclear power stations and said that it may consider adding partners at a later date.

Pedro Azagra, director of development at Iberdrola, said: ‘Iberdrola is committed to the UK market, and welcomes the UK’s plans to develop new nuclear power plants for low-carbon energy supply.’

The planned joint venture follows a recent announcement by rivals RWE and E.ON, in which they stated plans to develop at least 6GW of nuclear capacity in the UK as part of a government programme to replace state-built reactors.

Alistair Phillips-Davies, energy supply director at SSE, said: 'We accept that one more tranche of nuclear power stations is necessary for the UK's energy policy goals from around the end of the next decade.

'We also recognise that we will have to continue to be able to source power generated from nuclear stations if we are to meet our customers' energy needs in the long term.’