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 Hinkley Point (B) power station in each year since 2010.
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 |
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Notes on Table