LONDON — The budget of the U.K.’s new publicly owned power company Great British Energy has been raided to fund a long-standing government commitment to develop mini nuclear reactors.
Labour’s manifesto committed to spending £8.3 billion over five years on GB Energy to “deliver clean power” projects across the country.
But its budget for investing in renewables like wind and solar is now less than £6 billion, after Rachel Reeves’ spending review assigned £2.5 billion of its funding package to a government partnership with Rolls-Royce to develop small modular reactors (SMRs) — small-scale nuclear power plants that will be quicker and easier to build than traditional plants.
The SMR program, run by government agency Great British Nuclear (GBN), dates back to 2023 and the previous Conservative government.
