Final Voyage Completed for Rebar Cage Sea Transport to Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Station

This summer, the cargo vessel "Anfield Peak" departed from the Port of Bristol in the UK, heading to Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Station in Somerset. This marked the vessel's final voyage for the related transport mission. Previously, it had made over 100 round trips between the two locations, delivering factory-prefabricated rebar cages to the nuclear construction site.

These rebar cages are large in volume and high in density, serving as critical foundational components in civil engineering construction. Under traditional practices, such rebar cages are typically prefabricated on-site before concrete pouring. The Hinkley Point C project, however, has shifted part of the rebar cage prefabrication process to a factory in Bristol, with the cages then transported by sea to the site for installation.

Tom Moore, head of the main civil engineering works at Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Station, stated that factory-based prefabrication enables related operations to be carried out in a 24-hour production environment, improving both safety and efficiency compared to working on a remote and busy construction site. Installation work that previously took around three weeks on-site can now be completed in approximately one week.

Building on this, the project has further adopted the large crane "Big Carl" for integral lifting, positioning prefabricated building modules directly into place. One building recently lifted weighs 739 tonnes and comprises two floors with a total of 12 rooms.

The construction experience gained will also be applied to Sizewell C Nuclear Power Station in Suffolk. As a key project in the UK's new nuclear power advancement, Sizewell C will draw on the factory prefabrication, modular construction, and large-scale lifting experience developed at Hinkley Point C during its early construction phase, to enhance the efficiency of subsequent project organization.