Two nuclear reactors at Heysham Power Stations have returned to service after outages which owners say brought "a significant economic boost" to the local area.
Essential maintenance work, which began in January, brought hundreds of extra workers to the area, supporting local businesses and ensuring the continued safe and efficient operation of power stations, said EDF.
Heysham 2 took one of its reactors offline for its 13th statutory outage on January 6. It is a statutory requirement to carry out one of these outages on each reactor every three years to enable the continued generation of zero-carbon electricity.
Throughout the outage a 1,600-strong workforce, including more than 900 visiting workers, completed more than 15,000 pieces of work, including internal vessel inspections, gas circulator exchanges, electrical system maintenance, and a significant weld inspection programme.
The reactor successfully returned to service on Saturday May 3 2025.
Planning and preparation for the station’s second reactor’s next major outage in early 2026, is already under way.
James McGowan, Strategic Outage Manager at Heysham 2 Power Station, said: “It’s great that this outage, which has been carefully planned over the past two years, not only ensures that the station continues running safely and reliably for the future, but also brings a real boost to the area.
“The hundreds of extra contractors that were brought in have stayed in local hotels and B&Bs, dined at local restaurants and used public transport, proving that our investment in the station also brings great benefits to the local community.”
On January 30, one of Heysham 1’s reactors was taken out of service for a refuelling outage, where spent nuclear fuel is replaced with fresh fuel, and other work that is not possible during normal operation can be conducted.
This outage period saw the station carry out graphite inspections and sampling work, to support the station’s extended generating life.
“This Heysham outage period has brought in skilled contractors from across the country. Over the years we have built strong relationships with those who come to help us to complete this vital work, while making a positive contribution to the local economy by working and living in the area.”
This positive impact was highlighted in a recent report by independent consultants, Economic Insight, which looked at the economic impact of the current fleet of EDF’s eight nuclear power stations during their operational lives.
The report showed that together, Heysham 1 and 2 have contributed more than £28.9 billion to the UK economy since 1983, supported more than 5,400 jobs a year for more than 40 years and avoided 284 million tonnes of carbon so far, which is like taking every car off the UK’s roads for four years.
Joe Ruddock, General Manager at the Toll House Inn, in Lancaster, said: “We get a lot of stays from EDF when the outages are on.
"This financial year we provided around 300 room nights to outage workers, which equates to around 4% of our total rooms revenue and makes EDF our biggest customer this year.”
At the end of last year, it was announced that the generating lives for both Heysham 1 and Heysham 2 power stations had been extended - Heysham 1, by one year to 2027 and Heysham 2, by two years to 2030.
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