The proposed Wylfa Newydd NPP on the island of Anglesey in the UK will require a smaller area than initially designed, with more buildings shared between the two planned UK Advanced-Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) units, project owner and developer Horizon Nuclear Power said on 24 May.
Horizon announced its updated plans together with the beginning of the third round of a public consultation process on Wylfa Newydd. The company said the process is scheduled to last until 22 June and will include 17 public events across North Wales.
Apart from presenting a more compact power station design, Horizon will also discuss how it can best manage the impact from construction, the statement said. Horizon said the construction process "now adopts a more modular technique", which reduces the construction program and requires fewer construction workers on site. It is now proposing constructing one larger radioactive waste storage facility to serve both reactors, rather than two separate smaller buildings. Horizon said the landscape mounds have also been reviewed "to give a more natural shape to the landscape".
The three off-site facilities - the alternative emergency control centre, the environmental survey laboratory and the mobile emergency equipment garage - have been consolidated on a site at Llanfaethlu. Horizon says this reduces the number of development sites associated with the project. Horizon, which was acquired by Hitachi of Japan in November 2012, did not say what prompted the proposed changes to its initial plans. In April 2017, the company submitted its site application for Wylfa Newydd to the UK regulator and said it aimed to receive all the necessary permissions by the end of 2018.
