Nuclear in Wales

In the Welsh Government’s Prosperity for All: the national strategy, is to create a prosperous and secure, low carbon economy for Wales, and the nuclear sector and its growing supply chain opportunities, have the potential to play a significant part in realising this ambition.

We wish to see the investment in the nuclear sector assist our businesses to grow, creating long term sustainable employment opportunities across the supply chain. As a Government, we are fully committed to working with business to deliver economic growth.

Our nuclear heritage has developed over the past 50 years as a result of hosting the Magnox fuelled Trawsfynydd and Wylfa power stations from the mid-1960s onwards. The two stations provided direct secure, stable and well-paid jobs for over a 1,000 people in their heyday in peripheral, rural economies where high value jobs are otherwise difficult to create and sustain.

However, the Welsh supply chain’s wider involvement in providing the stations with products and services during their operational phase has historically been modest. The Central Electricity Generating Board was responsible for running all nuclear power stations until it was privatised in the early 1990s and its procurement methods were notoriously bureaucratic with few opportunities advertised outside the established supply chain. The situation marginally improved upon privatisation, with greater competition and private sector involvement but relatively few businesses in Wales engaged fully with the sector. 

In the 2000s however, the context for supply chain participation began to change. Firstly, in 2005 the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority was established to co-ordinate and fund the decommissioning of legacy sites (including Sellafield and the Magnox estate) – this created a structured and open procurement process that enabled wider supply chain involvement and a number of Welsh companies have since been involved in the decommissioning process


Wales Nuclear Forum - https://walestraining.klickstream.com/search/search_CategoryView.aspx?ID=182
Advanced Nuclear Technologies - https://walestraining.klickstream.com/search/search_CategoryView.aspx?ID=180
Hinkley Point C in Somerset - https://walestraining.klickstream.com/search/search_CategoryView.aspx?ID=178
Fit For Nuclear Programme - https://walestraining.klickstream.com/search/search_CategoryView.aspx?ID=176
Decommissioning - https://walestraining.klickstream.com/search/search_CategoryView.aspx?ID=174