Trawsfynydd
CYM | 
ENG
Site address
Trawsfynydd Site
Blaenau Ffestiniog
Gwynedd
LL41 4DT
Tel: 44 (0) 1766 543210
Fax: 44 (0) 1766 543343
Site profile
Trawsfynydd Site is situated on the edge of Llyn Trawsfynydd, the third largest lake in Wales, and uniquely located in the Snowdonia National Park, North Wales. The lake was originally created in the 1920’s to supply water to the Maentwrog hydro-electric power station. Construction of the Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station started in July 1959. The 390MW twin reactors began commercially generating electricity in March 1965 and over its lifetime Trawsfynydd sent out 69 TWh of electricity into the National Grid. This stopped the production of an extra 69 million tons of CO2 from a large coal fired power station. Following 26 years of successful generation Trawsfynydd was taken off-line in 1991 for repairs which were deemed to be uneconomic. Defuelling of the reactors commenced in 1993 and was completed 21 months later during 1995, four months ahead of schedule and under budget. This operation saw 99.99% of radioactive material removed from site. Trawsfynydd has been undergoing decommissioning since 1995.
Currently working towards the Care and Maintenance (C&M) phase in its Life Time Plan, Trawsfynydd is the only UK Magnox site to be recovering waste from all its waste streams, and the only UK site to be recovering certain types of waste. As part of the Magnox Optimised Decommissioning Programme (MODP) both Trawsfynydd and Bradwell Sites (located in Essex) have been selected for accelerated decommissioning, in the mission to achieve a C&M state on at least one of these sites. Decommissioning work at Trawsfynydd is well advanced and there is an opportunity to speed-up existing projects, to achieve an earlier end point. Entering accelerated C&M at these sites will be landmark events for the UK as they will become the first sites in the country to achieve this point.
All recovery operations centre around Low-Level and Intermediate-Level legacy wastes, the by-products of the operational phase of the station. To house the processed and packaged wastes, an Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) store has been constructed which was completed in 2008 and commissioned in 2009.
Buildings are also being decommissioned and removed and we are reducing site hazards and processing legacy wastes which will leave only three buildings for the C&M phase; Reactors 1 and 2, height reduced and ‘cladded’ to become Safestore buildings, and the ILW store. The ILW packages will remain in the ILW store until the National Repository becomes available, later this century. At this point the site will be brought out of C&M, the store emptied and then demolished. Height reduction of both reactor buildings is planned to take place between 2020 - 2026, with Final Site Clearance between 2076 - 2085.
The site is committed to working with its employees, the local community and the Site Stakeholder Group (SSG) to ensure there is a smooth transition towards the 2016 C&M date
Magnox Limited is the management and operations contractor responsible for the day-to-day operation of the site under contract to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
At a glance
Location: Gwynedd
Nearby towns/cities: Blaenau Ffestiniog (7 miles), Porthmadog (10 miles), Bangor (38 miles).
Site area: 15 hectares
Approximate number of current employees: 218 staff, approx 65 agency workers and approximately 350 contractors
