A £75 million refurbishment project is underway at the Sizewell B nuclear power station, located on the Suffolk coast.
The work, which involves taking the site’s reactor offline for about two months, commenced on 11th October.
This process, occurring every 18 months, allows for essential refuelling and maintenance to ensure the continued efficient and safe operation of the plant.
The reactor, which began generating electricity in 1995, produces enough power each year to meet the needs of over 2.5 million homes.
During the current outage, the station will replace a portion of its fuel assemblies, conduct detailed inspections, and upgrade key components, including giant turbine rotors.
Robert Gunn, Station Director at Sizewell B said: “These outage periods are tremendously important for us.
“They allow us to examine our plant in a way we can’t do when we are generating and they give us the chance to complete major improvement projects.
“Beyond this they are important for the Suffolk economy. When we undertake an outage we need help from hundreds of external contractors who then live, shop and eat locally while the work is ongoing.
“During this outage we will bring in more than 1000 extra staff to deliver more than 12,000 tasks.”
