An alliance of Cumbrian manufacturers is delivering on a multi-million-pound contract to provide space-saving underwater racks that will store spent nuclear fuel at Sellafield and could help save millions in future decommissioning costs.
The Cumbria Manufacturing Alliance (CMA) is made up of 2 of the UK's leading engineering companies; Bendalls Engineering of Carlisle and West Cumberland Engineering Ltd based in Workington.
In 2021 CMA won a contract to build the next generation of stainless-steel racks that will be used to store cans of spent nuclear fuel from the UK's fleet of Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) power stations.
Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor (AGR) power stations have limited cooling pond storage space for spent fuel; constraining the speed at which reactors can be defueled. To remove this constraint the spent fuel needs to be transported to the Sellafield site and stored in racks inside larger storage ponds.
The Hybrid 2 63 Can Rack builds on lessons learned from the earlier Hybrid 1 racks with an improved design to enable 'repeat' manufacturing processes.
As the name suggests, these 8 tonne, 6 metre high racks can hold 63 cans of spent nuclear fuel, more than triple the capacity of older storage racks.
This means Sellafield will be able to safely store all the spent AGR fuel it receives in its existing storage pond without having to build new facilities, which further supports the UK AGR programme saving significant sums of taxpayer money in future decommissioning costs.
The first of the new racks was delivered to the Sellafield site in November 2022 and a total of 200 racks will be manufactured over the next 5 years.
Steve Slater, Sellafield Ltd's head of programme for spent fuel services said:
It was great to see the first can rack delivered.
Thanks to the commitment of all involved we now have a fit for purpose solution that will help us achieve our mission of creating a clean and safe environment for future generations.
