We will need water to build and operate Sizewell C. Our water plans cover how we will develop and maintain a water supply, not just for our site but for the wider community too, and how we’ll mitigate any negative environmental impacts.
In the earliest days of Sizewell C’s construction, water will need to be tankered to the construction site by heavy-goods vehicles (HGVs) from outside the local area. Peak demand will be 4 million litres of water per day. HGV movements will be strictly monitored to make sure the total number of journeys remains within agreed limits and if need be, we’ll by reschedule other deliveries to the site to stay under this limit.
The majority of the water needed for construction will come from a temporary desalination plant on our main development site. It will be one of the first things we build and will be located away from Sizewell Marshes SSSI and Sizewell beach.
The demand for water will vary but the desalination plant has the capacity to supply all the water we need, even at peak levels of construction. We plan to re-use up to 70% of our water to minimise demand. Plus, any extra desalinated water could be stored and used by other local businesses.
Sizewell C will not reduce the water supplies to East Suffolk homes and businesses. Instead, we will help to increase water availability and help build a better water network for the region.
Once it is operating, we will use less than 0.1% of the total water forecast to be needed in the East of England while generating low-carbon electricity for around 6 million homes.
To accommodate the overall increase in demand in the region, the local water companies (Northumbrian Water Ltd and Anglian Water) will build either a water recycling plant in Lowestoft or a new reservoir in North Suffolk. Once the new source (or combination of sources) is chosen, Sizewell C will help to pay for a mains pipeline to bring the water to the Leiston area.
The new mains pipeline will supply not just the power station but the wider community as well. As a result, by the mid-2030s the area around Sizewell C is expected to have more water than it needs.
Not only will our project reduce carbon emissions, but we will also help to address the threat of water shortage caused by global warming. An improved water supply is one of the many ways Sizewell C will bring change for the better to the East of England.
All nuclear plants in the UK are located near the sea so that water can be used in their cooling systems.
Electricity has been safely produced from nuclear power at Sizewell for almost 60 years. Having Sizewell C next to Sizewell B reduces the environmental impact from construction. Our site will also benefit from nuclear licencing and a grid connection.
We will use a fish return system, similar to Sizewell B’s, to avoid the impact on fish as much as possible. We will also use a state-of-the art cooling water intake head, specifically engineered to minimise the number of fish captured in the first place.
Whilst some fish will inevitably get caught up in our water intake system, there’s no scientific evidence that Sizewell C will have a significant effect on population sizes and abundance trends of marine fishes.
Cefas are the government’s marine and freshwater science experts and have looked closely at our mitigation plans for marine wildlife. You can read their advisory here.
Sizewell A has stood on the same part of coastline since 1966 and Sizewell B has operated since 1995. In more than half a century, neither of those power stations has seen any flooding or significant coastal erosion.
The design of the power station, including its sea defence and the raised platform it will be built on, will protect Sizewell C from flooding. Our plans take account of the effect of climate change and the predicted rise in sea levels over the coming decades.
Sizewell C will be built on a platform standing approximately 7 metres above today’s mean sea level and will be protected by a sea defence structure which will be more than 14 metres above mean sea level. These and many other measures incorporated into the design of the power station will protect it from the sea.
To make sure our plans are future-proof, our sea defence will be adaptable and could be raised in future if sea level rise turns out to be greater than current predictions.
You can read the 2021 Sizewell Coastal Defences report here and the draft Coastal Processes Monitoring and Mitigation Plan (CPMMP) here for more info.
