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The Sizewell nuclear site consists of two
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 ...
s, one of which is still operational, located near the small fishing village of Sizewell in
Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowesto ...
, England. Sizewell A, with two
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 ...
reactors, is now in the process of being decommissioned. Sizewell B has a single
pressurised water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) is ...
(PWR) and is the UK's newest nuclear power station. A third power station, to consist of twin EPR reactors, is planned to be built as Sizewell C.


Sizewell A


Site

The site of Sizewell A occupies north of Sizewell. It is on a low plateau above flood level. The geological foundation comprises
Norwich Crag Formation The Norwich Crag Formation is a stratigraphic unit of the British Pleistocene Epoch. It is the second youngest unit of the Crag Group, a sequence of four geological formations spanning the Pliocene to Lower Pleistocene transition in East Anglia. ...
and
Red Crag Formation The Red Crag Formation is a geological formation in England. It outcrops in south-eastern Suffolk and north-eastern Essex. The name derives from its iron-stained reddish colour and ''crag'' which is an East Anglian word for shells. It is part of th ...
bedrock of
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...
age above
Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "daw ...
London Clay The London Clay Formation is a marine geological formation of Ypresian (early Eocene Epoch, c. 56–49 million years ago) age which crops out in the southeast of England. The London Clay is well known for its fossil content. The fossils from t ...
. The Crag deposits predominantly consist of medium dense and dense sands with thin layers of clay and silt and fossiliferous shelly horizons. The Crag strata extend to a depth of below ground level. In 1972/73, Sizewell A was awarded the Christopher Hinton trophy in recognition of good
housekeeping Housekeeping is the management and routine support activities of running an organised physical institution occupied or used by people, like a house, ship, hospital or factory, such as tidying, cleaning, cooking, routine maintenance, shopping, ...
. The site is reached by road, with the nearest railhead about one mile inland at Sizewell Halt. Sidings were installed at the railhead primarily to transport irradiated elements to the
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ( ...
plant at
Sellafield Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nu ...
, Cumbria. Nuclear fuel was handled by a crane loading facility at the end of the Leiston/Sizewell branch railway. This is connected to the East Suffolk line via a south-facing junction to the north of Saxmundham station. The line was extended and used for the delivery of construction materials for Sizewell B power station in the 1980s. The line is now only rarely used for transportation of spent fuels from Sizewell B since the completion of decommissioning of Sizewell A in 2006. A new branch line off the Leiston branch has been proposed for rail terminals for the construction of Sizewell C power station to the north of the existing B power station.


Construction

The Midlands Project Group of the
Central Electricity Generating Board The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in England and Wales from 1958 until privatisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s. It was established on 1 Januar ...
(CEGB) planned and managed the project. The main contract was placed in November 1960 and construction work on Sizewell A began on 1 April 1961. The main construction contract was awarded to British Nuclear Design and Construction Ltd ('BNDC'), a consortium of
English Electric N.º UIC: 9094 110 1449-3 (Takargo Rail) The English Electric Company Limited (EE) was a British industrial manufacturer formed after the Armistice of 11 November 1918, armistice of World War I by amalgamating five businesses which, during t ...
,
Babcock & Wilcox Babcock & Wilcox is an American renewable, environmental and thermal energy technologies and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets across the globe with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio, USA. Historicall ...
and
Taylor Woodrow Construction Taylor Woodrow Construction, branded as Taylor Woodrow, is a UK-based civil engineering contractor and one of four operating divisions of Vinci Construction UK. The business was launched in 2011, combining civil engineering operations from the ...
, The initial budget was £56million, but due to inflation this figure rose to £65million. During its 40-year operational lifetime, it had produced of electricity, which would have been sufficient to meet the domestic needs of England and Wales for six months. Unit 1 was commissioned on 21 March 1966, and Unit 2 on 15 September. The station was officially opened on 7 April 1967 by the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk, the Earl of Stradbroke.


Design

The designed net electrical output of the station was 652
MWe 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 W ...
. The power station originally had a single 324.75MW turbo-alternator, and a gross generating capability of 327.7MW. In 1967 a second turbo-alternator was commissioned with a rating of 275MW.''CEGB Statistical Yearbook'' (various dates). CEGB, London. The total generating capacity was reduced to 490MW in 1969, and then 420MWe in 1973, to arrest the rate of oxidation of internal reactor-core components. At full load, 70MWe were used in providing works power from the gross electrical output of 490MWe. The main plant consisted of two 1,010MW (thermal)
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 ...
reactors, which were natural uranium, carbon dioxide gas cooled, graphite moderated units. These supplied heat to eight boiler units, four associated with each reactor. The steam produced by the boilers was fed to two turbo-generators each rated at 325MW, but which operated at a reduced capacity of 250MW from 1969. The reactors and turbines were both supplied by English Electric.


Building specification

The foundations for the reactors and associated boilers are provided by a reinforced concrete raft thick, founded on the sand with a designed net bearing pressure of 3.5tons per square foot. The biological shields are high and vary between thick. The composite steel and reinforced concrete cap above each reactor is thick. Both reactors were housed in a single building to achieve savings in building costs. The turbine house is a steel-framed, aluminium clad building long, wide and high, with a reinforced concrete basement deep. The foundations are provided by isolated bases and strip footings with a designed maximum bearing pressure of 3 tons per square foot. The pumphouse which supplied the main turbines with of cooling water per hour drew sea water from an intake structure about offshore via twin diameter tunnels. This water was returned to the sea through similar tunnels discharging offshore.


Electricity output

Electricity output from Sizewell A power station over the period 1966-84 was as follows. Sizewell A annual electricity output GWh.


Decommissioning

The power station was shut down on 31 December 2006. 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 ...
(NDA) subsidiary
Magnox Ltd Magnox Ltd is a nuclear decommissioning Site Licence Company (SLC) under the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), a government body set up specifically to deal with the nuclear legacy under the Energy Act 2004. In September 2019, it became a ...
is responsible for placing contracts for the decommissioning of Sizewell A, at a budgeted cost of £1.2billion. Defuelling was completed in 2014. Removal of most buildings is expected to take until 2034, followed by a care and maintenance phase from 2034 to 2092. Demolition of reactor buildings and final site clearance is planned for 2088 to 2098. On 7 January 2007, a contractor working on the decommissioning of the station noticed water leaking on to the floor of the laundry where he was washing his clothes. The water was found to be cooling water from the pond that holds the reactor's spent
nuclear fuel Nuclear fuel is material used in nuclear power stations to produce heat to power turbines. Heat is created when nuclear fuel undergoes nuclear fission. Most nuclear fuels contain heavy fissile actinide elements that are capable of undergoing ...
which had dropped more than without activating any of the alarms. It is estimated that up to of radioactive water had leaked from a split in a pipe, with some spilling into the
North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegia ...
. According to the HM Nuclear Installation Inspectorate's report of the incident, without the chance intervention of the contractor, the pond could have drained before the next scheduled plant inspection. If the exposed irradiated fuel had caught fire, it would have resulted in an airborne off-site release of
radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...
.


Sizewell B

Sizewell B is the UK's only commercial
pressurised water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) is ...
(PWR) power station. Its single reactor was built and commissioned between 1987 and 1995, and first synchronised with the national grid on 14 February 1995. The main civil engineering contractor was John Laing. The power station is operated by
EDF Energy EDF Energy is a British integrated energy company, wholly owned by the French state-owned EDF (Électricité de France), with operations spanning electricity generation and the sale of natural gas and electricity to homes and businesses throug ...
. The architectural design was carried out by
Yorke Rosenberg Mardall Yorke Rosenberg Mardall (Yorke, Rosenberg and Mardall, YRM) was a British architectural firm established by F. R. S. Yorke (1906-1962), Eugene Rosenberg (1907-1990) and Cyril Mardall (Sjöström) (1909-1994) in 1944.Melvin, Jeremy (1997). Obitua ...
. EDF's strategic target is for 20 year life extension for Sizewell B PWR, beyond the current accounting closure date of 2035. This would mean the plant remaining in operation until 2055. , the power station is still planned to close in 2035.


Design

The 'nuclear island' at Sizewell B is based on a Westinghouse '4-loop' plant known as SNUPPS (Standard Nuclear Unit Power Plant System) initially designed in the 1970s and used at Wolf Creek and Callaway but with additional redundancy and diversity in the safety systems, and other modifications such as the addition of a passive Emergency Boration System. The containment design was not based on SNUPPS however, but was designed by NNC (National Nuclear Corporation – bought by
Amec Foster Wheeler Amec Foster Wheeler plc was a British multinational consultancy, engineering and project management company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. In October 2017, it was acquired by Wood Group. It was focused on the Oil, Gas & Chemicals, ...
in 2005) in conjunction with
Bechtel Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. , the '' Engineering News-Record'' ranked Bechtel as the se ...
. The Wolf Creek and Callaway plants each have single half speed, 1,800RPM (60Hz), steam turbine-alternator sets which use the steam produced from the heat generated in the reactor to produce about 1,200MW of electricity at the US grid frequency of 60Hz. Such large turbo-alternator sets were not available in the UK at the time Sizewell B was designed. So that orders could be given to UK manufacturers, and to avoid project risk in dealing with what were at the time newly designed very large turbo-alternator sets, Sizewell B uses two full-speed, 3,000RPM (50Hz), nominal 660MW turbo-alternator sets similar to those used at the AGR power stations Hinkley Point B, Heysham 1, Hartlepool and Torness, and at some fossil-fuel power stations elsewhere, but adapted to cope with the wetter steam conditions produced by the PWR steam supply system. PWR steam supply systems produce saturated steam at lower temperature and pressure than the dry superheated steam produced by AGR reactors or fossil-fuel power stations, and the high- and intermediate-pressure stages of the steam turbines have to be designed cope with this Sizewell B can run at half power using one turbo-alternator. The major components were supplied by: * Reactor system: Westinghouse * Reactor vessel:
Framatome Framatome () is a French nuclear reactor business. It is owned by Électricité de France (EDF) (75.5%), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (19.5%), and Assystem (5%). The company first formed in 1958 to license Westinghouse's pressurized water react ...
(main shell:
Japan Steel Works is a steel manufacturer founded in Muroran, Hokkaidō, Japan in 1907. History Japan Steel Works was set up with investment from British firms Vickers, Armstrong Whitworth and Mitsui. During World War II, they manufactured what was then the wo ...
, domes and other components: Le Creusot Forge) * Core internals: Westinghouse * Steam raising:
Doosan Babcock Altrad Babcock Ltd (formerly ''Doosan Babcock Ltd.'') is part of Altrad. It is a power sector OEM, construction, upgrade, and after-market services company that offers specialist services and technologies to the fossil-fired power generation, ...
* Turbines: GEC-Alsthom * Civil works: John Laing * Fuel:
Springfields Springfields is a nuclear fuel production installation in Salwick, near Preston in Lancashire, England (). The site is currently operated by Springfields Fuels Limited, under the management of Westinghouse Electric UK Limited, on a 150-year ...
Nuclear Fuel * Architect:
Yorke Rosenberg Mardall Yorke Rosenberg Mardall (Yorke, Rosenberg and Mardall, YRM) was a British architectural firm established by F. R. S. Yorke (1906-1962), Eugene Rosenberg (1907-1990) and Cyril Mardall (Sjöström) (1909-1994) in 1944.Melvin, Jeremy (1997). Obitua ...
A distinctive white hemisphere envelopes the outer shell of the twin-walled containment building that protects the pressurised water reactor and its
steam generator A Steam generator is a device used to boil water to create steam. More specifically, it may refer to: * Boiler (steam generator), a closed vessel in which water is heated under pressure * Monotube steam generator *Supercritical steam generator ...
s.


History

First announced in 1969 as an advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) based power station, and then in 1974 as a steam-generating heavy water reactor (SGHWR), Sizewell B was eventually announced as a PWR power station in 1980. The initial design submissions to the CEGB and the
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering * Nuclear physics * Nuclear power * Nuclear reactor * Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine * Radiation therapy * Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space * ...
(NII) were based on the design of the
Trojan Trojan or Trojans may refer to: * Of or from the ancient city of Troy * Trojan language, the language of the historical Trojans Arts and entertainment Music * ''Les Troyens'' ('The Trojans'), an opera by Berlioz, premiered part 1863, part 1890 ...
plant at
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
. Designed by Westinghouse, construction of Trojan began in 1970 and was completed in 1975. Westinghouse continued to develop the design they had used for the Trojan plant into the SNUPPS design, built first at Callaway, and SNUPPS was adopted as the basis for the design approved by the CEGB in October 1981. Before construction commenced, the design of Sizewell B was subjected to a detailed safety review by the NII, and a lengthy public inquiry. The Pre-Construction Safety Case was submitted to the NII in August 1981. The public inquiry was held between 1982 and 1985, and took over 16 million words of evidence, a record at the time. The chairman of the inquiry, Sir Frank Layfield, reported in early 1987 that, subject to a satisfactory safety case, there were no substantive reasons why the project should not proceed. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate accepted the Pre-Construction Safety Case and issued a licence to proceed with construction in August 1987. Sizewell B was calculated to be economically viable at a 5% discount rate and was approved financially on that basis. The project cost was revised upwards three times to 135% of the original cost, providing a cost-performance of £2,250/kW (2000 prices) not including first of a kind costs and £3,000/kW including them. A post-startup evaluation estimated generating cost were about 6p/kWh (2000 prices, which is equivalent to £/MWh in ), excluding first-of-kind costs but using an 8% discount rate for the cost of capital, much higher than the expected cost in 1995 of 3.5p/kWh (2000 prices, equivalent to £/MWh in ). Sizewell B was built and commissioned between 1987 and 1995, and first synchronised with the National Grid on 14 February 1995. The cost of Sizewell B has been quoted as £2 Billion (1987 prices) with a quarter of that cost being related to civil engineering works. The original rating was for a thermal power of 3,444MW and gross electrical output of 1,250MW, which after house load of 62MW gave a net output to the grid of 1,188MWe, equivalent to in the year of 2005. It was uprated by 1% in 2013 with a thermal power of 3,479MW and an electrical output of 1,195MWe, though this is dependent on seawater temperature. As with many other PWRs, Sizewell B operates on an 18-month operating cycle, i.e. at or near 100% output continuously for around 18 months, followed by a month's shutdown for maintenance and refuelling. Sizewell B was designed for a commercial life of 40 years (i.e. to around 2035) but similar stations elsewhere have been granted extensions to 60 years. On 27 May 2008, Sizewell B had an unplanned shutdown, cutting off its supply to the National Grid. A
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 ...
spokesman said that the fault involved conventional equipment at the plant rather than any part of the nuclear reactor. On 17 March 2010, Sizewell B was taken offline for an extended period because of high moisture levels in the containment building due to a pressuriser electrical heater fault, requiring difficult repairs. On 2 July 2010, just before 21:00, while still offline, a minor fire broke out on the second floor of the building housing the charcoal adsorber at Sizewell B. Numerous emergency services were called to the scene and the fire was brought under control by 3:30 the following day when the charcoal adsorber was flooded. On 2 March 2012, Sizewell B had an unplanned shutdown due to an electrical fault. One and a half weeks later it was restarted at half capacity. , conditions improved and Sizewell B continued under carefully controlled operation. In 2013, a new remote Emergency Response Centre was inaugurated near the power station, following recommendations made after the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 an ...
. The centre provides remote controls and a back-up plant. In January 2014, the building of a dry spent nuclear fuel store began. The existing
spent fuel pool Spent fuel pools (SFP) are storage pools (or "ponds" in the United Kingdom) for spent fuel from nuclear reactors. They are typically 40 or more feet (12 m) deep, with the bottom 14 feet (4.3 m) equipped with storage racks designed to hold f ...
, which stores spent fuel under water, was expected to reach full capacity in 2015. In April 2016, the building was inaugurated. This will enable
spent nuclear fuel Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor an ...
produced from autumn 2016 until at least 2035 to be stored until a
deep geological repository A deep geological repository is a way of storing hazardous or radioactive waste within a stable geologic environment (typically 200–1000 m deep). It entails a combination of waste form, waste package, engineered seals and geology that is suited ...
is available. In March 2017, the first cask containing spent nuclear fuel was installed. In 2021, Sizewell B had an extended outage for maintenance and safety related issues. ''The Times'' reported that excessive wear on some stainless steel "thermal sleeves" in the control rod mechanisms had been discovered. The maintenance period was extended to over four months to evaluate the cause and extent of the wear to decide how many to replace.


Sizewell C

Since the sale 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 ...
to
Électricité de France Électricité de France S.A. (literally ''Electricity of France''), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with €71.2 billion in revenues in 2 ...
(EDF) in February 2009, plans for a further twin-unit reactor to be built at Sizewell have looked increasingly likely. Sizewell already has a connection agreement in place for a new nuclear power plant to be built. The government revealed that the 1,600MW projected units, to be called Sizewell C, would, together with the planned units at
Hinkley Point C Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (HPC) is a two-unit, 3,200MWe 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 ...
, contribute 13% of UK electricity in the early 2020s. EDF plans to use
Framatome Framatome () is a French nuclear reactor business. It is owned by Électricité de France (EDF) (75.5%), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (19.5%), and Assystem (5%). The company first formed in 1958 to license Westinghouse's pressurized water react ...
's EPR design for any new-build reactors in the UK, this being the design of reactors currently being built in Olkiluoto, Finland, Flamanville, France and Taishan, China. On 18 October 2010, the British government announced that Sizewell was one of the eight sites which it considered suitable for future nuclear power stations. On 21 October 2015, it was reported that Britain and China had reached Strategic Investment Agreements for three nuclear power plants, including one at Sizewell, though no specific financing plans for Sizewell are agreed. The final investment decision for Sizewell C is only likely to take place after the Hinkley Point C build has started. In May 2020, the Energy for Humanity issued an open letter calling for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to support the project as without nuclear the "action on climate will be more difficult, more expensive, and more likely to fail". It also called for lessons to be drawn from
Hinkley Point C Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (HPC) is a two-unit, 3,200MWe 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 ...
as well as the UK's offshore wind programme to ensure a timely procurement schedule. Concerns have been expressed regarding one of the shareholders in the consortium, China General Nuclear Power Group. CGN is owned by the Chinese government and has been blacklisted by the
US Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for bus ...
for attempting to acquire advanced US nuclear technology and material for diversion to military use. EDF submitted its planning application in May 2020, declaring 25,000 job opportunities and 70% of investment being spent in UK. The plant will largely replicate
Hinkley Point C Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (HPC) is a two-unit, 3,200MWe 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 ...
design to reuse experience, lower cost and ensure high levels of safety. The proposal was welcomed by
Unite the Union Unite the Union, commonly known as Unite, is a British and Irish trade union which was formed on 1 May 2007 by the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU). Unite is the second largest trade union in the UK (afte ...
. On 27 May 2020, EDF Energy announced that it had submitted a development consent order application. However EDF have yet to organise financing, and cannot take on more construction risk in the UK. EDF is looking to the UK government to assist on financing either by offering a regulated asset base (RAB) model used on less risky infrastructure, though that puts an immediate cost burden on end consumers or through other approaches such as a government equity stake in the development. On 30 June 2020, EDF Energy announced that it had applied to the
Office for Nuclear Regulation The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is the regulator for the nuclear industry in the United Kingdom.< ...
(ONR) for a licence to build and operate Sizewell C. The ONR is responsible for the safe operation of nuclear sites in the UK and for permitting new nuclear site licencesone of the key regulatory requirements for building and operating a new power station. In March 2022, it was announced that the UK government and EDF would each take a 20% stake in the project, with infrastructure investors and pension funds expected to take up the remaining 60%.


See also

*
Nuclear power in the United Kingdom Nuclear power in the United Kingdom generated 16.1% of the country's electricity in 2020. , the UK has 9 operational nuclear reactors at five locations (8 advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGR) and one pressurised water reactor (PWR)), producing ...
*
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 ...
*
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 ...
* List of nuclear reactors#United Kingdom * Hilda Murrell * Proposed nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links


Magnox Limited, Sizewell A

EDF Energy – Sizewell B
*
International Atomic Energy Agency The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 195 ...
power station performance data
Sizewell A1
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110604093119/http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.ophis.htm?country=GB&site=SIZEWELL%20B&refno=24&opyear=2020 Sizewell B
Sizewell B
Nuclear Engineering International wall chart, December 1982 {{Authority control Buildings and structures in Suffolk Power stations in the East of England Nuclear power stations in England Électricité de France Nuclear power stations with proposed reactors Leiston