Hartlepool Power Station: Power Failures

(asked on 13th December 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many outages or other periods of unavailability of electricity generation there have been per reactor, in days, at Hartlepool power station in each year since 2010.


Answered by
Greg Hands Portrait
Greg Hands
Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
This question was answered on 21st December 2021

Nuclear power continues to be an important and proven source of reliable, clean energy, and as a result of this strong baseload provision, we have been able to move faster on a number of our key net zero objectives.

In 2020, nuclear power stations generated 50 TWh of electricity, which was 16% of the electricity generated in the UK. The UK’s Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor Fleet has performed beyond original expectations providing extra years of generation.

A proportion of the nuclear generating capacity is likely to be unavailable at any given point due to routine inspections, maintenance, energy systems management and technical issues.

2010 – 2021: Annual number of outages and non-operational days at UK nuclear Advanced Gas Cooled (AGR) power stations

Dungeness B R21

Dungeness B R22

Hartlepool R1

Hartlepool R2

Heysham 1 R1

Heysham 1 R2

Heysham 2 R7

Heysham 2 R8

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

2010

0

230

4

101

3

49

3

86

2

152

3

119

1

5

1

251

2011

4

260

3

249

6

129

2

50

2

22

4

24

2

82

3

32

2012

5

172

2

181

3

47

2

37

4

71

5

133

4

63

0

0

2013

5

102

8

182

4

48

4

133

2

141

7

50

1

28

2

74

2014

9

179

6

106

3

122

4

144

3

246

3

138

0

0

1

1

2015

4

44

3

129

2

79

4

79

3

77

2

136

2

70

0

0

2016

4

41

7

57

5

132

3

79

2

46

3

47

0

0

1

65

2017

6

153

5

92

2

26

4

29

2

98

3

75

3

9

0

0

2018

4

127

3

140

2

109

3

29

3

31

1

71

3

89

1

4

2019

0

365

0

365

6

41

3

117

2

39

5

86

0

0

2

5

2020

0

366

0

366

2

29

3

62

3

130

3

71

1

9

2

82

2021

0

346

0

346

2

114

3

135

4

129

6

95

3

193

5

65

Hinkley Point B R3

Hinkley Point B R4

Hunterston B R3

Hunterston B R4

Torness R1

Torness R2

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

Outages

Days non operational

2010

2

54

4

44

2

14

1

36

5

143

2

15

2011

2

36

3

90

3

42

2

64

4

13

4

19

2012

4

86

3

20

1

60

0

0

0

0

2

88

2013

1

9

1

23

0

0

1

48

1

12

4

17

2014

1

33

0

0

3

25

3

109

3

79

3

18

2015

1

6

1

85

3

69

1

4

0

0

2

86

2016

4

77

1

6

3

27

1

16

1

4

1

1

2017

3

28

3

51

2

27

1

65

1

63

1

2

2018

2

18

1

64

3

301

1

90

2

4

5

86

2019

2

96

1

3

0

365

1

257

0

0

0

0

2020

2

248

1

314

0

243

0

271

0

0

1

6

2021

2

147

1

130

2

64

2

71

4

142

4

72

Notes on Table

  • Days non operational represents days where a reactor didn’t generate at all during a day.
  • If output in a day is > 0, then the day is counted as an operational day.
  • Outages represent the number of occurrences where a reactor was non-operational.
  • 2021 is until 12th December 2021 only.
  • Dungeness moved into its defueling phase in June 2021, having been in an extended outage since September 2018
  • N/A means not available.
Reticulating Splines