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Letter to the Hunterston Site Stakeholder Group - 8 November 2019

By EDF | Posted November 08, 2019

8 November 2019

Dear SSG Member,

This is my first letter to you in the post of Acting Station Director. I have not had the opportunity to meet most of you yet but I look forward to doing so in the coming months.

In my seven years as Plant Manager at Hunterston B I came to know the site well but have been at Torness for the past two years so have spent the past few weeks familiarising myself again with the people and the station.

As a member of our community, I believe it is important to keep you updated on any developments at the power station.

You will be aware that when ONR gave permission for Reactor 4 to restart in August that it was based on a power output of 16.025TWh; depending on the performance of the unit that equated to around 4 months of operation.

I’m delighted to say that Reactor 4 has been operating safely and efficiently since it returned to service but as a consequence the power output outlined in the current safety case is due to be reached in December 2019. Any extension to the operating time would need to be agreed with the ONR.

We are continuing to work on the safety cases for Hunterston B but we now expect Reactor 4 to come offline on 10 December 2019. Having clarity on this date allows us to plan plant operations over the next few months.

Once we have taken the unit offline we will carry out further graphite inspections and report the results to the ONR.

I am proud of the performance of the unit and the team at Hunterston B since the reactor returned to service in August. Energy market rules require us to provide our most likely view of return to service dates. For Reactor 4 this is now 15 February 2020. The date for Reactor 3 remains unchanged at 15 January 2020.

I hope this information is useful to you as a member of the Site Stakeholder Group. Should you wish to ask any questions please feel free to ring the Station on 01294 826000 and ask for our Communications Officer, Nikki Thomson.

Paul Forrest

Acting Station Director

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Hunterston B power station
Hunterston B power station

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