Dungeness B Power Station Monthly Newsletter - January 2020

We are keen to hear the views of our local communities. We recognise that good communication is a two-way process and we welcome your feedback and comments. While we will do our best to use plain English, talking about our business sometimes involves specific terminology.

Safety

We measure our safety performance against top tier indicators, including nuclear reportable events, environmental events, and staff and contract partner recordable injuries.

During the period of the report there have been:

No injuries to employees
No nuclear reportable incidents
No environmental incidents

Station Output

On 27 August 2018 Dungeness B shut down Reactor 22 for its planned statutory outage. On 23 September 2018 Reactor 21 was also shut down for the planned double reactor outage.

This has been one of the station’s busiest periods of maintenance for many years, with employees and specialist contractors carrying out a huge amount of technical tasks. The work has included a significant programme of main steam pipework inspections and defect removal. This has run in parallel to a programme of enhanced inspection and remediation of back-up systems susceptible to the effects of environmental corrosion.

Over the past 14 months we have spent over £64 million on our programmes and throughout this process we have worked closely with the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).

All of the work that is happening on the station must be underpinned by a comprehensive safety case that demonstrates the station’s ability to produce safe, reliable generation. A safety case analyses all possible scenarios, and demonstrates that all defects have been removed. Our reactors will only be returned to service when we are satisfied that it is safe to do so.  This work is now nearing completion and our latest forecasting gives us return to service dates of April 20 and May 2, 2020.

The station will continue to produce low-carbon electricity safely and reliably for many years to come – and with this in mind engineers are working through a very full and thorough service, which will stand us in good stead for the future.

Visitor Centre
Our Visitor Centre continues to thrive. During December we welcomed more than 200 people on tours and as drop-ins to our exhibition area.  The Visitor Centre already has more than 2400 people booked on future tours.

Station News

Staff at Dungeness B raised more than £1,700, with a Christmas raffle run throughout November and December. They money was split between four charities – the Royal National Lifeboat Institution at Dungeness, the Last Chance Animal Rescue centre in New Romney, Pebbles Dementia Charity and the Air Ambulance Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

Craig Bunney a shift operations technician at Dungeness B receives a charity donation on behalf of the Dungeness RNLI lifeboat.

And Rochelle Saunders, left, and Wendy Richley right, accept a donation from Dungeness B on behalf of the Pebbles Dementia Charity.

Local community meetings

EDF Energy and Nuclear Decommissioning Authority hold regular joint meetings with local people, media, council and emergency services representatives and local politicians to maintain regular communications about the site. This meeting is independently chaired and members of the general public are welcomed.

In 2020 site stakeholder meetings will take place on 30 January (AGM), 21 May & 15 October, all in the Dungeness B Visitors Centre Lecture Theatre. 

For more information contact Tracey Finn, Magnox Ltd, on: 01797 343510