A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be invited to tag along on a trip to the Operations Training Simulator at Sizewell B Nuclear power station.

Spending an Afternoon In The Sizewell Control-Room Simulator

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2024-05-06 16:30:04

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be invited to tag along on a trip to the Operations Training Simulator at Sizewell B Nuclear power station.

Located on the Suffolk coast, Sizewell B is currently the UKs only Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) and is operated by EDF Energy (I've also previously accidentally met some of their police force).

The simulator is a high fidelity reproduction of the site's control room. They've reproduced the original to the extent that one of the walls even sports painted-on doors (complete with a view into the "kitchen") because that's where the doors are in the real room.

Aside from the carpet being somewhat less worn, a huge amount of effort has been put into ensuring that it is essentially a 1:1 reproduction of the actual control room.

A shut-down back in 2007 and is being decommissioned. The James Bond-esque building on the left is its turbine hall (sadly scheduled for demolition this summer).