Sizewell B Nuclear Plant To Get Life Extension
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Energy Live News.
This is the sub-heading.
Power station was slated to close in 2035 but could have its life extended by two decades
These two paragraphs add detail to the story.
EDF and Centrica are preparing to invest around £800 million to keep Sizewell B generating for another 20 years, according to reports.
The Suffolk nuclear plant is currently due to close in 2035 but the companies are in talks with the UK Government over a deal that could extend operations to 2055.
These are also some facts from Wikipedia and other sources.
- Sizewell B was commissioned in 1995.
- It has a capacity of 1.2 GW.
- It provides three percent of the UK’s power.
- According to Google AI, Sizewell B has had an excellent safety record.
- Sizewell A is the only UK nuclear power plant that I have visited and I was very impressed how they managed the annual shutdowns.
Incidentally, according to Google AI, Sizewell A generated electricity for forty years and only had one alarming problem during decommissioning.
How Many Similar Nuclear Plants Are There In The World Like Sizewell B?
I have to ask this question, as when you are running old machines of any type, the more operational examples you have the better.
I asked Google AI and received this answer.
Sizewell B is the UK’s only commercial Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). Its nuclear core is based on the Westinghouse 4-loop SNUPPS (Standardized Nuclear Unit Power Plant System). While hundreds of PWRs operate worldwide, only two exact global clones share this foundational design, alongside heavily adapted reactors.
The Exact SNUPPS Clones (2 in the world)
Sizewell B’s “nuclear island” is fundamentally based on the SNUPPS model developed in the 1970s.
Only two other plants share this exact base design:
Callaway Nuclear Generating Station (Missouri, USA)
Wolf Creek Generating Station (Kansas, USA)
Note: While Sizewell B utilizes this base architecture, it features significant UK-specific modifications, such as heavily diversified safety systems and an Emergency Boration System.
Similar 4-Loop Westinghouse PWRs
If you are looking at the broader Westinghouse 4-loop PWR family—the wider technological class that Sizewell B belongs to—there are dozens of similar reactors spread across the globe.
These operate in countries like the United States, France, South Korea, and China.
I have been over four PWRs of various makes in the United States and only one gave me any cause for concern.
My training at ICI taught me, that if you have a complicated and possibly dangerous plant or factory, you must keep it tidy, as that lowers the risk of accidents.
This nuclear power plant was the most untidy industrial plant I’d ever seen. Since I visited in the 1980s, it has been decommissioned and demolished.
Would I Be Happy To See Sizewell B Carry On Generating?
Obviously, I’d be guided by the various authorities and information from around the world.
But Sizewell has the Leiston factor. Leiston is the nearest town to the Sizewell site.
This is a paragraph from Leiston’s Wikipedia entry.
Leiston thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a manufacturing town, dominated by Richard Garrett & Sons, owners of Leiston Works, which boasted the world’s first flow assembly line, for the manufacture of portable steam engines. The firm also made steam tractors and a huge variety of cast and machined metal products, including munitions during both world wars. The works closed in 1981 and the site was reused as a mixture of housing, flats and industrial sites. The Long Shop Museum, showing the history, vehicles and products of the works, remains as a heritage tourist attraction.
Did the engineering heritage of the area contribute to the good safety records of the first two Sizewell nuclear power stations?
I also lived near the nuclear site at Sizewell for thirty years and the feeling of Suffolk people about the power stations is more one of pride, rather than fear.
The Anonymous Widower 
Good to see most generating plant if its still efficient can be life extended so should be promoted for the best CCGTs to
Comment by Nicholas Ronald Lewis | June 12, 2026 |
I must admit, that in the year 2060 or even earlier, I can see Sizewell B and Sizewell C forming the centrepiece of the British Museum of Nuclear Power.
I do consider the day, I went over Sizewell A, one of the highlights of my life. They had developed the ultimate planning system for the yearly shutdown. On a wall of the control room was a large sheet of Perspex and the PERT network for the shutdown was drawn on it in colour.
Comment by AnonW | June 12, 2026 |
I visited an old intact steelworks in the Ruhr valley a few weeks saves as a monument and would have been fabulous if they could have saved one of the 2GW coal fired power stations. Absolute triumps of British engineering all designed and constructed before computers and CAD yet utterly complex with 100’s miles of piping and 1000’s miles of cabling built on time and budget. Yet today we cant build anything
Comment by Nicholas Ronald Lewis | June 12, 2026
Drax Group has a visitor at their power station in Selby and at Cruachan.
When I meet an engineer, who used Artemis, which was the system I wrote in a Suffolk attic, they always say that Artemis allowed you to iterate your design, until you got one that was feasible.
The Channel Tunnel went through several iterations, before it was built on time and on budget.
Was this because, I came from a mathematical modelling background, where this approach was more important?
It should be remembered that I wrote the differential equation solving software, that was used by the Water Resorces Board to plan eater supply in the UK.
As we don’t have prolonged water shortages in the UK, I believe they got it right. That system allowed you to iterate your model.
Comment by AnonW | June 12, 2026 |