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Sizewell B has begun generating again following the completion of an £80 million upgrade.
The Suffolk nuclear plant has been offline since the middle of February. In that time, the plant has undergone refuelling and a series of maintenance works.
This included replacing one of the two rotors that are responsible for turning the turbine that makes the power, replacement of one of the four reactor coolant pumps inside the plant’s dome and routine servicing of valves and motors.
The outage also enabled a complete inspection of the primary circuit of pipes for any signs of stress corrosion cracking.
The plant will now continue generating for a further 18 months without any planned outages.
EDF is looking at extending the operational life of Sizewell B power station by at least 20 years, from 2035 to 2055 with £300 million of investment planned.
Robert Gunn, Sizewell B station director, said: “The whole team at Sizewell B is proud to bring the power station back into service again to deliver low carbon electricity for Suffolk and beyond. This was a particularly important outage for us as we deliver the 10 year plan for the station.
“We know the importance of energy security and the role nuclear power plays in limiting carbon emissions. Since we switched the station off in February we have systematically worked through a checklist of thousands of tasks to ensure the station has a clean bill of health and is set up for a successful future.”
The government’s Energy Security Strategy, published in April 2022, envisages a significant acceleration of new nuclear in the UK, with an ambition of up to 24GW by 2050 to come from this source of power. In total, this would cover around 25% of the country’s projected electricity needs.
Last year, energy secretary Grant Shapps confirmed that the government will take a £679 million stake in the proposed Sizewell C nuclear plant, which will be located next to Sizewell B. EDF will also provide additional investment to match the government’s stake with both working to attract new third-party investment to help finance the 3.2GW project’s construction and operation.
As well as delivering new projects, there is a push to keep existing plants online longer than previously planned with EDF recently confirming that it will extend the lives of Heysham 1 and Hartlepool power stations by an additional two years.
Construction of EDF’s Hinkley Point C power station also continues to gather pace with the plant’s first reactor arriving on site earlier this year. Despite construction progress, the cost of the project continues to rise with EDF recently revealing a further £6 billion cost increase.
It led several academics and analysts to question whether the government should revisit its plans to invest in future large-scale nuclear projects.
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