UK energy company Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) has announced that it is pulling out of its nuclear development joint venture with GDF Suez and Iberdrola.

The three partners had planned to develop new nuclear capacity in the UK through the NuGeneration (NuGen) venture, which has a purchase option for up to 3.6 GW near Sellafield in West Cumbria.

The site was secured for an initial cash consideration of £19.5 million and was named as a suitable location for development in the Government’s National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation this summer.

But SSE says it has informed its partners that it wants to sell them its 25% stake in NuGen, marking its withdrawal from the sector.

“The UK will need both nuclear and renewable energy in the future, but we have made it clear from the start of our involvement in NuGen that for SSE our core investment in generation should be in renewable energy,” commented Alistair Phillips-Davies, director of generation and supply at SSE.

Although Phillips-Davies doesn’t rule out future investment in nuclear power, he says that for the moment the company will focus on renewable energy, gas-fired generation, including carbon capture and storage options, and alternative energy developments.

“Given we have no experience of ownership or operations in the nuclear sector,” says Phillips-Davies, “we have always adopted a cautious approach to the financial and other issues associated with nuclear power development.”

For now, he says, SSE believes that the “significant financial and management resources” required to drive NuGen forward would be better deployed by the company elsewhere.

Earlier this week, German engineering giant Siemens announced that it will no longer be producing nuclear power dedicated equipment and components.