The UK government has announced that Wylfa power station in Anglesey is its preferred site for building a large-scale gigawatt nuclear power plant. 

With direct access to cooling water as a result of its convenient location on the North Wales coast, the announcement states that the new power plant at Wylfa could provide enough clean and reliable energy to power the equivalent of approximately six million homes for up to 60 years. 

The announcement supports the government’s ambitions to strengthen the UK’s energy security by ensuring that nuclear power delivers up to 24GW (nearly a quarter of the country’s projected electricity needs) by 2050. In addition to the building of a large-scale gigawatt nuclear power plant, the development of small modular reactors will be critical to meet these ambitions.