Heysham 2 project case history

Abstract

The project management of the design and construction of the Heysham 2 Nuclear Power Station was an unusual activity. It was the last of the Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor designs to be ordered by the UK power utilities. The paper explains some of the background to the project, the way in which the client and its agent set up an unusual partnership between themselves and another utility who had ordered a sister plant, how this partnership operated, how design decisions were based on previous experience, and how particular problems were overcome, leading to a plant that was commissioned in a world-record time.