The two-unit Hinkley Point B nuclear power station in Somerset, England, has been transferred from operator EDF to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) for decommissioning.
The site will be managed by NDA subsidiary Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS), which is also decommissioning the neighbouring Hinkley Point A site.
Hinkley Point B-1 was the first British-designed Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGRs) to export electricity to the national grid in 1976. When it finished generating some 46 years later, in 2022, it had produced enough zero-carbon electricity to power every home in the South West of England for 33 years. Hinkley Point B-2 was also connected to the grid in 1976.
Around 250 people working on site will transfer from EDF to work on decommissioning the site.
Energy minister Michael Shanks said Hinkley Point has long been a central part of the UK’s nuclear energy industry. The A site began generating electricity in 1965 and was joined by the B station in 1976. Today work is ongoing, on land next to these two stations, to build two France-suppled EPR plants at Hinkley Point C.
Between 1976-2024 Hinkley Point B generated more than £15bn (€17bn, $19.8bn) worth of economic value to the UK. Decommissioning continues to generate significant economic benefits, economic analysis shows that in 2024/25 Hinkley Point A was estimated to contribute around £31m in economic value for the local authority, rising to £61m for the wider UK.
Hinkley Point B generated electricity between 1976 and 2022. Both reactors on the site have now been successfully defueled, a process which has been overseen by the Office for Nuclear Regulation.
Defueling the Hinkley Point B units to prepare for decommissioning was completed on time and on budget, and over the three years more than 4,900 elements of spent fuel were removed and packaged into specially engineered, transportable fuel flasks by NDA subsidiary Nuclear Transport Solutions and taken to Sellafield, the NDA group’s largest site, for storage.
Hinkley Point B is the second AGR site to transfer to the NDA for decommissioning following Hunterston B earlier this year in April. Other sites that are also planned to transfer are Dungeness B before the end of the decade, and Hartlepool A, Heysham A, Heysham B and Torness, as they complete their generating life.
