Engineers worked through the night using the 250m-tall crane to lift part of the reactor’s steel containment liner into place at 430am on 18 December. The lift had been planned to take advantage of a small weather window.
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The liner section was welded and prefabricated under cover in factory conditions on site to improve quality and lower risk to the schedule.
It came at the end of a year that has seen completion of the first reactor’s base, the start to tunnelling on three water cooling intakes beneath the Severn Estuary, completion of a 760m seawall, and the construction of the first permanent buildings above ground.
The project, led by the BYLOR (Bouygues/Laing O’Rourke JV) will now focus on completing the base of unit two in 2020, repeating the same design. The approach will be used for the near-identical plant at Sizewell C in Suffolk.
Hinkley Point C managing director Stuart Crooks said: “The first big lift is another impressive achievement and I want to thank the teams who’ve worked so hard to make this possible. The experience from civil and nuclear construction and operation across the world at Hinkley Point C is first class and I am pleased to say that we have ended 2019 with all milestones achieved.
“We know that Hinkley Point C’s success is essential in the fight against climate change – in a future when renewables and nuclear will be needed to fill an energy gap as we move away from polluting fossil fuels.”
Big Carl is named after Carl Sarens, the director of Belgian crane firm Sarens.
