Lack of capacity in the nuclear construction industry means that Britain will have to rely on imported natural gas to meet an emerging shortfall in power generation over the next decade, according to a senior executive of EDF, the French utility that has agreed to acquire British Energy, the nuclear power generator.

Bernard Dupraz, senior executive vice-president for power generation at EDF, said Europe did not have the engineering and construction capacity to build enough nuclear plant at sufficient speed to fill the gap left in Britain by the planned closure of elderly and obsolete power stations. “I think to fill this gap it will have to be gas-fired power stations,” he said.

According to the Government’s Energy White Paper, the UK will lose 22.5 gigawatts of power by 2020 because of closures of old nuclear stations and coal-fired plant that fails to meet EU emission regulations.

The French utility wants to build four nuclear reactors in Britain over the next decade. It hopes to begin pouring concrete on the first site in 2012 after a five-year licensing process and the first electrons might be generated by 2017. Mr Dupraz reckons that when its build programme is in full swing, it could bring a nuclear plant on stream every 18 months.

EDF’s preferred technology is the EPR, designed by Areva, the French utility, a nuclear reactor capable of 1.6 gigawatts of generating capacity. If four reactors are built by British Energy/EDF and perhaps a fifth plant by E.ON, the new nuclear contribution will fill less than half of the power gap forecast by the Government.

The likely solution will be the rapid construction of gas-fired power stations which could be built in a shorter time frame. Mr Dupraz said: “The problem will be solved with gas.”

However, more gas will leave Britain further exposed to energy price volatility and increase the country’s dependence on imports of fuel from Russia. It would also hamper efforts to reduce Britain’s carbon emissions.

Mr Dupraz said it would take time before a European nuclear supply chain could be developed. “During the 1970s, EDF built five nuclear power stations per year for a period of ten years. The situation today in Europe is one per year, then rising to two and three per year. You cannot yet imagine five per year.”

Britain will play a key part in EDF’s global ambition to extend its nuclear reach. The utility, which runs 58 nuclear stations in France which supply 65 per cent of the country’s power, wants to build ten reactors abroad by 2020, of which four will be in Britain, four in China and two in the US.

EDF’s first EPR is under construction at Flamanville in Brittany and Mr Dupraz expects it to be commissioned in 2012. The date is sensitive because Areva’s first EPR, in Olkiluoto in Finland, is two years behind schedule and suffering cost overruns. Given EDF’s commitment to a UK build programme and Britain’s anticipated power shortage, the French utility cannot afford problems at Flamanville.

“The merger [with British Energy] is very important, it will help us to compete on a world level,” Mr Dupraz said. EDF believes that the British company’s presence in the US will open doors, where an Anglo-Saxon calling card might be helpful.

Thousands of British graduates will have to be trained to meet EDF’s ambition for an Anglo-French nuclear power assault on the world. Each new plant will create 2,000 jobs for the five-year construction period and require an operational staff of 300. Areva envisages a large nuclear supply chain created in the UK but indicated there was a huge task in educating and training workforces to meet the demanding standards of the nuclear industry.

“We can imagine a very close partnership between the UK and France to attack the international market. It’s a question of reaching the right standards. We have higher [technical] standards than the petroleum industry,” Jean-Jacques Gautrot, head of Areva in the UK, said.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive