Sizewell B nuclear plant to run for another 20 years in deal with government

A nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast that was due to shut in a decade will now keep generating electricity until 2055, after its owner EDF struck a deal with the government. Sizewell B, near Leiston, began operating in 1995 and was originally scheduled to reach the end of its life in 2035, but the agreement extends its operation by a further 20 years. Robert Gunn, the plant’s station director, said the move would secure hundreds of jobs. “Securing another 20 years also safeguards existing jobs and allows us to continue to recruit another generation of Suffolk young people for the nation’s nuclear renaissance,” he said. EDF employs 620 staff and about 300 contractors at the site. The deal will enable about £800m of plant investment by EDF, with the agreement due to be finalised later this year. Sizewell B, the UK’s only pressurised water reactor, provides energy to more than two million homes and produces 3% of the nation’s electricity. According to EDF, the extension would generate enough electricity to meet the needs of every home in East Anglia for almost 45 years. Gunn said “major plant modifications and upgrades” would be made. The government has described the extension as “good news”. Lord Patrick Vallance, minister for science, innovation, research and nuclear, said extending the life of a nuclear plant was “a normal thing to do”. “It means we’ve got more clean electricity for that period,” he said. “That’s two and a half million homes’ worth of electricity and 900 jobs.” But the plans have drawn sharp criticism from campaigners. Chris Wilson, from the group Together Against Sizewell C (TASC), said future generations would be left dealing with the financial and environmental impact. TASC applauded the goal to phase out fossil fuels, Wilson said, but condemned “the government’s continued reliance on dirty and dangerous nuclear power”. He warned that the extension created a “multi-generational financial and environmental liability”, leaving descendants with years of flood defence maintenance and the “insurmountable challenge of safe, millennia-long, highly radioactive nuclear waste isolation, amid a changing climate”. Wilson also cited “global instability and conflicts in Iran and Ukraine” as highlighting that nuclear plants and their waste facilities could be vulnerable. The debate over Sizewell B’s future comes as construction of the new Sizewell C plant continues alongside the existing reactor – a juxtaposition that underscores the country’s ongoing nuclear ambitions and the unresolved question of what to do with the waste they leave behind.