A new chapter has begun at Hinkley Point B after the former nuclear power station was formally transferred from EDF to Nuclear Restoration Services, starting an 85-year programme to dismantle the site.
The station stopped generating electricity in 2022 after nearly 46 years. It was the first British-designed Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor to export power to the national grid, in 1976, and produced enough zero-carbon electricity to power every home in the South West of England for 33 years.
Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS), a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, has now taken on the site licence following approval from the Office for Nuclear Regulation.
Hinkley Point B is the second AGR station to move across to NRS, after Hunterston B transferred earlier this year.
About 250 workers are transferring with the site, including people from families who have worked at Hinkley for generations. NRS is already decommissioning the neighbouring Hinkley Point A station.
NRS chief executive Rob Fletcher said the organisation looked forward to “working together across both sites” to “deliver safe, secure decommissioning for the benefit of the community”.
Before the handover could go ahead, engineers spent three years defuelling the reactors. More than 4,900 elements of spent fuel were removed, packaged and taken to Sellafield for storage. The work was completed on time and on budget.
The first phase of decommissioning, running until 2038, will see buildings and plant taken down, apart from the site’s safestore structure. That facility will hold and manage residual radioactive waste from the station.
A second phase, from 2039, will be a period of relative inactivity lasting up to 70 years, allowing material inside the safestore to decay.
In the final phase, the former reactors and debris vaults will be dismantled and removed.
NRS managing director Dr Andy Munro, who is responsible for both Hinkley A and Hinkley B, said his interest in the industry began on a school visit.
“I came here on a school trip when I was ten years old, which ignited my interest for nuclear,” he said. “I remember sitting on the school bus looking at both reactors and now I’ve had a 30-year career in this fantastic industry.”
He said the stations had also provided jobs for generations of Somerset families. Workers who once helped run Hinkley Point B are now beginning the decades-long task of taking it apart.
Meanwhile, construction of the new Hinkley Point C power station continues on land next to the former B station.
