Suffolk's Sizewell B nuclear power station generating again after unplanned shut down

The Sizewell B nuclear power station was partly back up and running on Friday after being out of action since an unplanned shutdown on Monday.

Power in the reactor was raised again on Thursday and one of the two turbines started to feed power into the electricity grid at 6am on Friday.

EDF Energy, which runs the Suffolk plant, said the second turbine should be back online and generating power again by 6am on Saturday.

The electricity company said it was important that the turbines were restarted one at a time.

The nuclear power station had to be shut down on Monday because of an "instrumentation fault", its owners said.

The Sizewell B nuclear reactor  went offline and two turbines stopped working just after 5pm on Monday afternoon.

People living near the power station have been reassured that "at no time was there any risk to the public, personnel or the plant".

The last unplanned reactor shut down of this kind at Sizewell B was in August 2020.

“Like any large industrial plant, the station has a range of instruments which monitor operations to ensure it operates within safe parameters," said an EDF spokesperson.

"If a fault occurs in these instruments they will fail safe and in some cases will cause the plant to shut down."