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Hinkley Point B nuclear power station is a
nuclear power station A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces ele ...
near
Bridgwater Bridgwater is a large historic market town and civil parish in Somerset, England. Its population currently stands at around 41,276 as of 2022. Bridgwater is at the edge of the Somerset Levels, in level and well-wooded country. The town lies alon ...
,
Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...
, on the
Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel ( cy, Môr Hafren, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Se ...
coast of south west
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
. It was the first commercial Advanced Gas Cooled reactor to generate power to the National Grid in 1976 and shares its design with sister station
Hunterston B nuclear power station Hunterston B nuclear power station is a shut down AGR nuclear power station in North Ayrshire, Scotland. Located about south of Largs and about north-west of West Kilbride on the Firth of Clyde coast. It is currently operated by EDF Energy, and ...
. It ceased operations permanently on 1 August 2022.


History

The construction of Hinkley Point B, which was undertaken by a consortium known as The Nuclear Power Group (TNPG), started in 1967. The reactors vessels were supplied by Whessoe, reactor machinery was supplied by Strachan & Henshaw and the turbines by GEC. In March 1971, it was announced that there would be a six-month delay in completion due to problems with the insulation of the concrete pressure vessel. In place of the stainless steel mesh and foil insulation that had been used on previous
Magnox Magnox is a type of nuclear power/production reactor that was designed to run on natural uranium with graphite as the moderator and carbon dioxide gas as the heat exchange coolant. It belongs to the wider class of gas-cooled reactors. The n ...
stations, a fibrous type of insulation supplied by Delaney Gallay, part of the Lindustries Group, had been used for the first time. During pre-operational trials, before the nuclear fuel was loaded, high levels of acoustic vibration in the gas circuit were found to be damaging the insulation tiles, and the retention plates which held the insulation in place had to be redesigned and modified within the reactor. During further pre-operational testing, severe vibration of the fuel channel gags was detected. The fuel channel gags are valves which are gradually closed to restrict the flow of gas through a fuel channel in order to maintain the channel gas outlet temperature as the nuclear fuel is used up. Modifications to produce a fluidically generated bias force to stop the gags vibrating took time to design, test and implement, delaying the planned start up date. The station began generating electricity on 5 February 1976. It was taken over by
Nuclear Electric Nuclear Electric was a nuclear power generation company in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1990 as part of the privatisation process of the UK Electricity Supply Industry. In 1996, it was amalgamated into a new company – British Energy, ...
as part of the
privatisation Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
of the UK Electricity Supply Industry in 1990, though remaining in public ownership at that time. In 1996, the AGR and PWR assets of Nuclear Electric and Scottish Nuclear were privatised as part of
British Energy British Energy was the UK's largest electricity generation company by volume, before being taken over by Électricité de France (EDF) in 2009. British Energy operated eight former UK state-owned nuclear power stations and one coal-fired power ...
. In 2006, the station's reactors were shut down in order to inspect the boilers for weld defects that had been found in power stations using similar boiler designs. Due to its age, on 16 August 2006 the company warned that until a decision was made over whether to extend its usable life it would operate at a maximum of 70 per cent load. Both reactors were subsequently restarted generating 420MW each, roughly 70% of full capacity. The number 4 reactor was cleared for restart by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on 11 May 2007. The power station's current accounting closure date is 2023. In July 2013, EDF Energy announced that the load on both of the station reactors had been increased to 80 per cent, resulting in an output of around 485-500MWe per reactor up from 70% load, where it had been generating around 420MWe per reactor since 2006. Hinkley Point B is the only one of four nuclear power stations in the area which is operational, the other
Magnox Magnox is a type of nuclear power/production reactor that was designed to run on natural uranium with graphite as the moderator and carbon dioxide gas as the heat exchange coolant. It belongs to the wider class of gas-cooled reactors. The n ...
power stations being decommissioned are the adjacent Hinkley Point A together with Oldbury and Berkeley on the banks of the
River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...
. In October 2016, it was announced that super-articulated control rods would be installed in the reactor because of concerns about the stability of the reactors'
graphite Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on la ...
cores. The
Office for Nuclear Regulation The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is the regulator for the nuclear industry in the United Kingdom.< ...
(ONR) had raised concerns over the number of fractures in keyways that lock together the graphite bricks in the core. An unusual event, such as an earthquake, might destabilise the graphite so that ordinary control rods that shut the reactor down could not be inserted. Super-articulated control rods should be insertable even into a destabilised core.


Specification

The station is of the
advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) type with two 1,600
MWt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...
reactors, each with their own 660 MWe steam turbine generator set giving a combined maximum design generating capacity of 1,250MW. , it provided over 1% of the UK's total power output. Hinkley Point B is also equipped with four 17.5MW
Rolls-Royce Olympus The Rolls-Royce Olympus (originally the Bristol B.E.10 Olympus) was the world's second two- spool axial-flow turbojet aircraft engine design, first run in May 1950 and preceded only by the Pratt & Whitney J57, first-run in January 1950. It is ...
industrial gas turbines. Installed in 1970/71, and originally used for 'peak lopping', these are now used exclusively as emergency standby generators for the station.


Comparison with Hinkley Point A

A comparison with Hinkley Point A is shown below. See also comparison of Hinkley Point A, B and C


Capacity and output

The generating capacity, electricity output, load factor and thermal efficiency was as shown in the table.


Closure

On 19 November 2020, EDF announced that Hinkley point B would stop generating electricity and move into the defuelling phase no later than 15 July 2022. The plant has operated for 45 years and produced over 300TWh over its lifetime. Reactor B-8 was shut down in July 2022, followed by reactor B-7 in August. EDF said that the defueling process could take a few years, and the removed fuel will be given to the
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, formed by the Energy Act 2004. It evolved from the Coal and Nuclear Liabilities Unit of the Department ...
for decommissioning.


Hinkley Point C

A new 3,260MW
Hinkley Point C nuclear power station Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (HPC) is a two-unit, 3,200 MWe EPR nuclear power station under construction in Somerset, England. The site was one of eight announced by the British government in 2010, and in November 2012 a nuclear site ...
, consisting of two EPR reactors, was given planning consent on 19 March 2013. A guaranteed "strike price" of £92.50 per megawatt-hour (to be indexed for inflation over 45 years) was announced on 21 October 2013. The new power station would see Hinkley's contribution to the country's power supply rise to 7%. At the time of the planning consent, the price for electric energy on the wholesale market was around £45 per megawatt-hour while the new power plant was expected to need earnings of £90 per megawatt-hour in order to break even. On 8 October 2014, the EU gave its consent to the 'Contract for Difference (CFD)' that guarantees the "strike price".State aid: Commission concludes modified UK measures for Hinkley Point nuclear power plant are compatible with EU rules
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See also

*
Energy in the United Kingdom Energy in the United Kingdom came mostly from fossil fuels in 2021. Total energy consumption in the United Kingdom was 142.0million tonnes of oil equivalent (1,651 TWh) in 2019. In 2014, the UK had an energy consumption ''per capita'' of 2.78t ...
*
Energy policy of the United Kingdom The energy policy of the United Kingdom refers to the United Kingdom's efforts towards reducing energy intensity, reducing energy poverty, and maintaining energy supply reliability. The United Kingdom has had success in this, though energy in ...
* James L. Gray


References

{{Authority control Power stations in Somerset Former nuclear power stations in England Nuclear power stations using Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors