EDF Energy has ruled out postponing the shutdown of the Hinkley Point B.

It comes after culture minister Chris Philp said Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng was looking at whether the plant “might continue beyond its planned end” to guard against a “worst-case scenario” in Britain sparked by disruption to the global gas market.

In response to Mr Philp's comments, an EDF spokesperson said: "As confirmed in November 2020, Hinkley Point B nuclear power station will stop generating and move into the defueling phase by August 1 2022.

“It has reliably produced zero carbon electricity for over 46 years, more than 15 years longer than envisaged when built, and will complete its generating phase as the most productive nuclear site the UK has ever had.”

Hinkley Point B started generating electricity in 1976 and since then has produced more than 300 terawatt hours of power – an amount of energy that would meet the electricity requirements of every home in the UK for three years.

A Government spokesperson said: “Any extensions to operational dates for the UK’s nuclear power stations are a matter for the operator of the stations, EDF and the regulator the Office for Nuclear Regulation, which are based on safety considerations.

“The Government has no direct involvement in this process and has not made any requests of this kind.”

Last month Mr Kwarteng wrote to the owners of the UK’s remaining coal-fired power stations to ask them to stay open longer than planned.

He also wrote to the National Grid’s Electricity System Operator last week instructing it to work with the industry to boost non-gas-fired supplies over the winter.

Mr Philp told Times Radio: “I think what the Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng did last week was take some sensible precautionary measures to guard against a potential worst-case scenario.

“He asked, I think, the three remaining coal-fired power station operators to just keep their power stations available beyond the point of which they were due to be switched off, and I think he is considering whether Hinkley B, the large nuclear power station, might continue beyond its planned end of life as well.

“That’s a sensible precautionary measure, given that gas supply coming out of Russia and Ukraine is, for obvious reasons, so heavily disrupted and we do, of course, use quite a lot of gas to generate electricity.

“Only a very small proportion of that, of course, comes from Russia. A lot of ours comes from Norway and in the form of liquefied natural gas but, of course, disruption to the global gas market will have a knock-on effect that may affect the gas that we consumed domestically in the United Kingdom."

READ MORE: Minister claims Hinkley Point B could stay open longer.