Balfour Beatty installs six offshore liners for Hinkley Point C

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Balfour Beatty has completed a major milestone towards completing offshore works for Hinkley Point C after successfully installing six offshore liners for the reactor cooling system.

Installed up to two miles off the coast in the Bristol Channel, the second largest tidal range in the world, the six liners – each weighing up to 270 tonnes – will play a significant role in the power station’s vital cooling water system.

Lowered through 40 metre steel casings placed in the seabed earlier in the year, the six vertical liners will circulate 120,000 litres of water per second from the Bristol Channel to the nuclear power station through five miles of underground tunnels to provide cooling to the power station’s systems.

Reaching depths of 25 metres below sea level, each liner was designed with a world first, innovative pre-installed isolation cap, allowing safe, ongoing access to the cooling water tunnels for the remaining construction works prior to being fully removed and stored for use, should tunnel maintenance works be required.

Roger Frost, Balfour Beatty’s Hinkley Point C marine works project director, said: “This achievement is a significant step forward in our mission to contribute to the success of Hinkley Point C, a project that stands as a beacon for sustainable energy and engineering excellence.

“I am immensely proud of the progress we have made, and the depth and scale of this instalment demonstrates Balfour Beatty’s capability to deliver innovative solutions for critical infrastructure.”

The instalment marks the near-completion in the offshore works at Hinkley Point C, with over 1,000 experts from across Balfour Beatty, and its supply chain involved in its success. The final elements of the offshore works are expected to complete in the first half of 2024.

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