Wylfa will generate to the end of 2015

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has granted an extra year of life to Britain’s last operating Magnox nuclear power station, which will now continue generating electricity until December 2015. Originally scheduled to close in 2010, the Anglesey plant has been granted a number of lifetime extensions after demonstrating to regulators that it can continue to meet safety requirements.

Wylfa’s twin reactors, which began operating in 1970, once supplied enough electricity for almost half of Wales. Reactor 2 stopped generating last year, while Reactor 1 has continued to operate, using partially used fuel transferred from the shut-down reactor.

The extension will deliver additional income to the taxpayer of up to £785mn since the station’s original scheduled closure date in 2010, according to site owner the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Stuart Law, Wylfa Site Director, said: ‘This will be Wylfa’s final period of generation. After December 2015, we will follow in the footsteps of other Magnox sites and begin to defuel the reactor, which will take up to three years.’

Meanwhile, Sellafield Ltd’s relationship with the company cleaning up the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan has been further developed with the signing of a formal cooperation agreement. In May 2014 an initial cooperation statement was signed between Sellafield Ltd and Tokyo Electric Power Company to develop the working relationship between the two firms. 

The cooperation agreement enables the transfer of knowledge and experience between TEPCO, which is charged with decontaminating the Fukushima plant devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, and Sellafield Ltd, the Nuclear Management Partners’ owned company which is responsible for cleaning up the Europe’s most complex nuclear site, in Cumbria.