Hinckley Point C Warehouse Resin Flooring
Ecoflor were asked to provide resin flooring for a new 4000m2 warehouse facility on the Hinckley Point C nuclear power construction site at Cannington in Somerset.
The existing floor was made up of a number of concrete floor slabs that had previously formed a concrete plant where levelness was not critical.
Ecoflor were tasked with providing solutions to overcome a number of issues including:
Extensive cracking to the existing slabs.
Unsuitable joints which had spalled in service.
Level deviations from slab to slab.
Once surveyed Ecoflor proposed to infill all cracks with high strength thixotropic epoxy resin and infill the level deviations with epoxy mortar.
Upon cure the entire floor was prepared using Ecoflor’s Diamaprep grinding system in order that the floor could be primed with Resinflor EP Primer with a full quartz broadcast.
To provide a smooth running floor for forklift traffic, Ecoflor the applied its Resinflor Level 450 rapid dry cementitious levelling screed throughout.
Once this had been completed, the floor was again prepared and Ecoflor’s Resinflor HB high build solvent free epoxy coating was applied, with demarcation including walkways, fork lift drop zones and fire exits to provide a clear and safe warehouse layout.
About Hinckley Point C
he Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear power plant is being developed by Électricité de France (EDF) in Somerset, UK. It is the first new nuclear plant to be developed in the country in more than 20 years.
The development consent order for the project from the UK government was received in March 2013.
EDF and the China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC) signed a strategic investment agreement for the construction and operation of the nuclear project in October 2015. EDF’s stake in the project is 66.5% and CGNPC’s stake is 33.5%.
The Nuclear New Build Generation Company (NNB GenCo), a subsidiary of EDF, was formed to build and operate the project. CGNPC will make its investment in the UK through its new company, General Nuclear International (GNI).
The final investment decision on the project was announced in July 2016. The plant’s first unit is expected to be operational in 2027.
The project was originally estimated to cost £16bn ($27bn). In February 2023, EDF announced that its cost is likely to increase to between £31bn ($37.2bn) and £32.7bn ($39.3bn) due to inflationary pressures.
The 3.26GW plant is predicted to produce 26TWh of electricity per year during its operational lifetime of 60 years, equivalent to 7% of Great Britain’s forecast electricity demand during the 2020s.
The power generated by the plant will meet the needs of six million homes and will offset nine million tonnes of carbon dioxide. The project is expected to create 25,000 jobs during construction and operation.
Hinkley Point C power plant make-up
The power station’s 175-hectare site is on Somerset’s north coast at Bridgwater Bay, adjacent to the Hinkley Point A and B plants. Point C will be the first such plant to store spent nuclear waste on-site.
Two European pressurised reactors (EPR) with a power generation capacity of 1.6GWh each will be installed at the facility. Each reactor is designed for an operational life of 60 years. The reactors’ decommissioning is forecast to start in the 2080s and is estimated to continue for 20 years.
The first two EPRs were developed at Olkiluoto in Finland and Flamanville in France. The Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor commenced operations in April 2023.
The heat generated from the reactors will be used to produce steam to power the turbines, directly connected to a generator. Each generator will be capable of producing 1.63GW of electrical power. The turbines are based on ARABELLE steam turbine technology and have a power output of 1.77GW.
