THE chief executive of EDF Energy has said that construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant should begin early next year, despite financial pressures.

The French energy firm’s chief executive Vincent de Rivaz made the comments during his speech at a recent Nuclear Industries Association conference.

He said more legal and other work is needed to be completed before EDF could give the longawaited final investment decision on Hinkley Point, but he was confident that a decision would be made in the first quarter of 2015 – March at the latest.

He added discussions with potential new and existing foreign shareholders to the project were continuing.

Doubts have been raised that French firm Areva, which is designing the Hinkley C reactor, will be able to find the funds to take its 10% stake in the project.

Last month the group issued a profits warning and suspended financial forecasts.

Two Chinese groups have already agreed to take between 30 and 40% and EDF will have a stake of between 45 and 50%.

EDF has also been looking for outside investors to stump up and support the £25billion venture and rumours have circulated that stateowned Saudi Arabian firm Saudi Electric could join in.

Mr de Rivaz admitted that delays at its Flamanville plant in France were a setback, but insisted they would not impact financially on the British project, which is using the same European pressurised reactor (EPR) technology.

He told senior industry figures: “We should be under no illusion that building new nuclear plants has never been easy.

“We take the construction risk for Hinkley Point C, not the customers.

“Let us be clear, the cost of Hinkley Point C has not increased by one penny as a result of the delays at Flamanville.”

o EDF Energy is close to signing a deal which would see the company’s Regional Centre for Excellence based in Bristol, according to Property Week magazine.

An article published in the magazine claims that the energy firm is set to take 80,000sq ft at Bridgewater House in the city centre.

A spokesperson for EDF declined to comment but said: “We are looking across the South-West but we have not got a specific location.

“The big engineering and technical design teams need to be near the Hinkley C project.”