Power from the new Hinkley C nuclear generator will be too expensive, the boss of one of the UK's biggest energy consumers has warned.
Jim Ratcliffe, whose company Ineos owns the Grangemouth plant in Scotland, told the BBC that UK manufacturers would find the price unaffordable.
The government has guaranteed a price of £92.50 per megawatt hour (Mwh).
Mr Ratcliffe said Ineos recently agreed a deal for nuclear power in France at 45 euros (£37.94) per Mwh.
The government has guaranteed that the new Hinkley station, being developed by France's EdF and backed by Chinese investors, can charge the £92.50 minimum price for 35 years.
"Forget it," Mr Ratcliffe said in an interview with the BBC's business editor Robert Peston.
When running at full capacity the new Hinkley plant is expected to generate around 7% of the UK's electricity.
Ministers and EdF were in talks for more than a year about the minimum price the company will be paid for electricity produced at the site, which the government estimates will cost £16bn to build.
In the end, the government guaranteed the group a price for electricity in 2023 at twice the current level of wholesale prices.
Mr Ratcliffe said that the UK was the most expensive energy market his firm is involved in.
'Knife-edge'The Grangemouth refinery is set to become the first chemical plant in the UK to receive shale gas from the US. This will be the first time it will transported across the Atlantic ocean.
The plant supplies 70% of the fuel used at Scotland's filling stations.
The company had announced in October the permanent closure of the plant, affecting 800 jobs, but the bitter dispute with the Unite union ended after workers agreed to changes in conditions - including a three-year pay freeze and an end to the final salary pension scheme - and the plant will stay open.
Saying that the plant was on a "knife-edge" after "that turbulent time" in October, Mr Ratcliffe said: "I think Grangemouth has the prospect of a very good future if it can get through the next three years."
"Attitude on the site is much more positive and you can see people are really anxious to move on."
Mr Ratcliffe was a chemical engineer before he became an entrepreneur, when Ineos started by buying a Belgian chemical plant in 1998, for less than £90m.
He was reckoned to be one of the UK's 10 richest men before the credit crunch, worth £2.3bn, although Forbes magazine put his worth at $1.1bn (£680m) this year.
He added that Ineos was looking into hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, where water and chemicals are pumped into shale rock at pressure to release gas.
"We are having a look at whether we have a part to play in the UK in shale gas exploration," Mr Ratcliffe said.
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