Sizewell B back delivering reliable zero-carbon power

Suffolk’s biggest power station is once again safely providing zero-carbon power to the nation after Sizewell B was returned to service.

About seven weeks ago the site’s nuclear reactor was taken offline as planned so that engineers could complete a multi-million pound upgrade and improvement programme and refuel the reactor.

On Sunday, December 1, the reactor was brought back to power on time and the first of the site’s two turbine generators resumed supplying electricity to the nation. The second turbine spun into action in the early hours of Thursday, December 5.

Robert Gunn, Station Director, said: “Inside those few weeks our teams have performed an amazing job. They completed 15,000 separate pieces of work across 1,500 pieces of our plant. They also replaced the enormous rotor system inside one of our turbines and undertook detailed inspections of our reactor, its system and pipelines. We even sent divers to our intake pipe, which draws in the water we use in our operations, for inspections.

“These outage periods are incredibly important for the power station as they give us a chance to look at systems that are difficult, in some cases impossible, to access when we’re generating. Because of this work we now have a hugely improved picture of what is happening in our plant and reactor.

“We plan to extend the life of our plant, beyond 2035, so understanding what is happening inside all of our systems is vital. The good news is that at this point all our systems are as we expect.”

During the outage hundreds of extra staff made their temporary home in Suffolk to complete the huge range of specialist and general works delivered in this period.

The extra workers will have provided a boost to the region’s economy as they stayed in local accommodation and made use of the area’s restaurants and shops.

The station also spent thousands with a local printing firm which produced lanyards, posters and other promotional materials seen all over the site in recent weeks.

Robert added: “Every time our station undertakes one of these enormous outages we focus on the onsite issues. The refuelling the reactor, the inspections programme, installing upgrades. And that’s all vital.

“But I am also aware that our operations bring welcome benefits offsite too. The staff we bring in to help us bring tangible benefits to local businesses like hotels and restaurants which means these periods aren’t just for our benefit, they’re also helping our friends and neighbours.

“Our future plans are to extend our station’s lifetime out from 2035 to 2055, which will continue these benefits for many years to come.  We are confident in the technical case we need to make to extend the life and we are seeking greater cost certainty and confidence in the long-term commercial case to make a final investment decision when we’re ready.”

Notes to Editors  

• Since 1995, the power station has generated 258 terrawatt hours (TWh) of zero carbon electricity: enough to power every home in Suffolk for more than 190 years, preventing 87m tonnes of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere. 
• The site employs over 600 full time EDF staff and around 250 full time contract partners. The outage saw several hundred temporary staff working onsite in a variety of roles.
• Sizewell B has outages about every 18 months. The main function of an outage is to replace spent fuel. There are 193 fuel assemblies in the reactor each containing roughly 97,000 pellets. Each tiny pellet has the same energy as 800kg of coal. And each refuelling outage we replace one third of the fuel, this means that each fuel assembly lasts approximately 4.5-5 years in the reactor. 
• During this outage, one of the most significant projects was the turbine rotor replacement which cost £12m. 
• Other works include inspections of pipework in and around the reactor as well as a ten yearly regularly scheduled inspection of the interior of the nuclear reactor. 
• After triggering its Development Consent Order at the start of the year and securing a Nuclear Site Licence in May, Sizewell C is moving at pace. The government announced a further £5.5bn of funding for the project in May.   
• A once in a generation opportunity for East Suffolk, Sizewell C is creating thousands of new jobs, apprenticeships, and training opportunities for the region. It has allocated £250m in local funding, and once operational it is expected to contribute £40m a year to the local economy and employ 900 people in high-skilled, well-paid jobs.