How we build Sizewell C is crucial for the UK’s golden age of nuclear
As the newest nuclear project in the UK, Sizewell C is uniquely placed to be cost efficient, accelerate delivery and strengthen UK energy security. Dr Mina Golshan CBE, Sizewell C’s Safety, Security and Assurance Director, explains how smarter construction and proportionate regulation can make that a reality
For a long time, the UK has been grappling with some big questions about energy. How do we responsibly develop an energy supply that tackles climate change? How do we best take control of our energy system and achieve energy security in a volatile world? How do we build an energy system that delivers value for the UK and for consumers – and that is, ultimately, affordable?
Last year, with the release of a report from the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce led by John Fingleton, another question received greater focus. By looking at the nuclear sector specifically, and the regulatory burden currently placed upon it, the report asked us to consider how we wanted to build our energy infrastructure in Britain.
It’s an important question, and it’s one that has numerous implications for many of the other big questions we’re asking about energy. For nuclear specifically, it has implications for the cost and efficiency of the projects we build here in the UK. It has implications for how those projects deliver for the communities and the environment in which they’re based. And it has implications for how regulation functions.
How we build our energy infrastructure projects really matters.
Long before the release of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce report, we’d been thinking hard about this question at Sizewell C. As a replica of the Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear power station in Somerset, we already have the answer to what we’re building. Thanks to HPC, we have unprecedented design certainty: we know the quantities of materials we need, and we have a readymade supply chain to build them.
Sizewell C will power six million homes a year for the next sixty years and deliver £2bn a year in energy system savings
That gives us a unique advantage to think more about the question of how we build. Without the need to grapple with countless design changes in flight, we have an incredible opportunity to be innovative, to learn from the rapidly developing lessons of HPC, and to build on the accumulating advantages they’re realising from Unit 1 to Unit 2.
We’ve already put many of these innovations and learnings into practice – from developing more modularisation and prefabrication to more off-site storage and manufacture, more digitisation and more use of AI.
We’re thinking differently about how our project interacts with and benefits the local environment: we’ve built three nature reserves around our site, for example, which are already three times the size of the permanent footprint of the power station.
We’re thinking differently about jobs and skills development, about how we can ensure that people and businesses in the UK benefit from our project – that’s why we’ve committed to delivering 70 per cent of the project’s construction value to the UK, and announced plans to build a permanent post-16 college, apprentice hub and centre of excellence.
And we’re thinking differently about how we build Sizewell C in a way that least disrupts the communities around us and that leaves the greatest legacy once it’s complete: that means, for example, delivering 60 per cent of materials by rail and sea to minimise disruption on the roads, and building new rail and road infrastructure that will improve accessibility and safety in Suffolk for generations to come.
All of these innovations on how we build have the aim of either reducing cost, accelerating the pace of delivery, improving safety, or delivering better outcomes for local communities and the environment.
However, from the outset, it’s also been clear that we face complex regulatory frameworks in our sector with inflexibilities – legislative or cultural – built into the system. For us, it was clear that a culture change was needed: a culture in which regulators and industry are encouraged to innovate and feel safe to adopt more flexible and proportionate approaches to regulation and delivery, focused on safety outcomes and protection of the environment.
There is significant headroom for change here – and this is where the outcomes of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce report come in. The report is an important catalyst for our sector, setting out a framework that will help us to go further in creating regulatory efficiencies, more savings opportunities and better value for the UK.
As a replica project and the most recent nuclear power construction project in the UK, Sizewell C has a unique role to play in showcasing some of the report’s recommendations. We can be a lighthouse project, highlighting the value of putting the recommendations into action and demonstrating how the UK can set a template for efficient, predictable and repeatable nuclear construction.
There are several areas where we see significant opportunity – and where we’re already taking action. We’re instilling a culture that values outcomes over unnecessary processes. We’re addressing complex bureaucracy to enable faster, outcome-focused decisions and delivery, removing duplication, creating more automation and simplifying governance processes to manage change. We’re assessing over-specification with the aim of removing unnecessary measures from non-safety critical systems and ‘gold-plated’ solutions – identifying innovative approaches to improve cost efficiency and productivity gains. We’re pushing for better ways to align our supply chain with our target delivery outcomes – and to increase the efficiencies in the way we contract and incentivise delivery.
We’re also working with the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency (EA) to progress a number of pilot opportunities that will help our project avoid or reduce costs, improve environmental outcomes, deliver at greater pace and provide better overall value to consumers.
Earlier this year, for example, Defra announced that the EA will take the helm as our Lead Environmental Regulator for a pilot, acting as a single point of contact to co-ordinate streamlined, joined-up advice and smooth the regulatory process. It gives us a simple framework to build on our already constructive relationship with the EA – and demonstrate how regulation can work more effectively and efficiently for both project delivery and environmental protection. We now have an Environment Agency Officer who is regularly on site too, which means immediate communication and immediate attention to issues and opportunities.
We’re also working closely with the ONR to discuss changes in regulation and standards that could impact our delivery schedule and add cost to our project. If certain standards are safe enough for HPC, for example, why add millions in cost and risk delays to Sizewell C to make changes with negligible benefits with no material impacts on quality or safety? We have already agreed with the ONR that replication is the safest route forward – we are now working with them to ensure replication is implemented in practice. We have no doubt that the approaches we establish here will shape the construction of both future large-scale and small modular reactors.
We’re already seeing the significant positive potential of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce report at our project. To ensure there is cross-industry action, however, the support from the government is vital – to help implement the report’s recommendations, to join up national infrastructure projects, and to ensure that the supply chain and consumers see projects like ours as vital national endeavours that deliver on our economic and security goals.
After all, there is no doubt about the benefits of what we are building: Sizewell C will power six million homes a year for the next sixty years and deliver £2bn a year in energy system savings. With the implementation of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce recommendations, and with a unified approach of industry, regulators, supply chain and government, we have a big opportunity to set the template for how we build too. The impacts could be felt for generations to come.
