Sarens’ SGC-250 crane, named Big Carl, has placed the first steel ring section onto the second reactor building at EDF’s Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset, UK.
The lift comes just 11 months after the same operation took place for the first reactor. The prefabricated ring, which is 47 m in diameter and 17 m high, creates a reinforced cylinder around the nuclear reactor.
EDF said that the installation shows how building an identical copy of the first reactor drives efficiency and saves time: “The ring was built 25 percent more quickly than the same part on unit one, requiring thousands of hours less labour to manufacture. This ‘replication effect’ will benefit the identical Sizewell C project in Suffolk.
“The achievement is all the more impressive as the project deliberately switched materials and labour away from unit two during the pandemic when numbers onsite were limited and suppliers were impacted. This allowed work to focus on areas most critical to the project’s schedule.”
