UK’s largest concrete pour complete at Hinkley Point C

Contractors led by the Bouygues-Laing O’Rourke (Bylor) joint venture have completed the UK’s biggest-ever concrete pour at new nuclear power station Hinkley Point C.

Reinforced by 5,000 tonnes, the base for the first reactor at the plant, known as “J-zero” has been under construction for six months. The final 9,000m³ of concrete for the base represented the UK’s largest-ever concrete pour, beating a record set by the Shard in London.

Completion of the base means that the construction of the nuclear buildings above ground can now begin.

Forgings for the pressure vessel and steam generators are underway at Framatome in France and the world’s largest turbine is under construction at General Electric.

The world’s largest crane – the Sarens SGC 250 – is also being built on site to allow prefabrication of large parts of the nuclear buildings.

The construction of the second of Hinkley Point C’s two units, separated from the first by 12 months in order to allow maximum efficiency for the transfer of teams between units is also underway.

A total of 4,000 people are now working on the project, half of them from the local area.

Hinkley Point C managing director, Stuart Crooks said: “I am proud of the talent and achievement of our diverse UK workforce, our unions, our international supply chain and the design team in France. We are benefitting from direct experience from other EPR [European pressurised reactor] projects and a partner in CGN [China General Nuclear Power Corporation] which understands the technology and the project.”