Hinkley Point B Nuclear Power Station

Hinkley Point B is a nuclear power station near Bridgwater, Somerset, on the Bristol Channel coast of south west England. It was the first commercial Advanced Gas Cooled reactor to generate power to the National Grid in 1976 and shares its design with sister station Hunterston B nuclear power station.HistoryThe construction of Hinkley Point B, which was undertaken by a consortium known as The Nuclear Power Group, started in 1967. The reactors vessels were supplied by Whessoe, reactor machinery was supplied by Strachan & Henshaw and the turbines by GEC.In March 1971 it was announced that there would be a six-month delay in completion due to problems with the insulation of the concrete pressure vessel. In place of the stainless steel mesh and foil insulation that had been used on previous Magnox stations, a fibrous type of insulation supplied by Delaney Gallay, part of the Lindustries Group, had been used for the first time. During pre-operational trials, before the nuclear fuel was loaded, high levels of acoustic vibration in the gas circuit were found to be damaging the insulation tiles, and the retention plates which held the insulation in place had to be redesigned and modified within the reactor.