Update on Dungeness B power station

Dungeness B power station in Kent last generated electricity in September 2018 and is currently forecast to return to service in August 2021. The station has a number of unique, significant and ongoing technical challenges that continue to make the future both difficult and uncertain.

Many of these issues can be explained by the fact that Dungeness was designed in the 1960s as a prototype and suffered from very challenging construction and commissioning delays. Major investments have been made to repair and upgrade the station over many years, including more than £100million in this current outage. A number of significant technical risks still remain.

The current scheduled decommissioning date is 2028. Given the unique technical challenges noted above, a range of scenarios are being actively explored. These include moving directly into the defuelling phase later this year - if return to service cannot be achieved - bringing forward the end of generation date, or continuing until the scheduled date of 2028. Any change in closure date will be driven by the technical conditions and ensuring we continue to maintain safety over the entire lifecycle of Dungeness.

We expect to have the technical information required to make a decision in the next few months, as it is important we bring clarity to the more than 800 people that work at the station, and who support it from other locations, as well as to Government and all those with a stake in the station’s future.

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