EDF has released a five-minute video giving people an in-depth progress update on construction at Hinkley Point C in Somerset.

Once built, the two-unit nuclear power station will generate enough low carbon electricity for six million homes.

Delivery director Nigel Cann, who led the virtual tour, says over 9,000 men and women are “working feverishly to get this plant online as quickly as possible to support net zero”.

The first stop of his tour is the building that is temporarily housing the first nuclear reactor, which arrived at the site from France in February.

Mr Cann said: “The reactor pressure vessel, which is 13 metres long, will actually produce the energy, through fission, to produce the heat for our turbines that will produce electricity for over three million homes.

“The reactor pressure vessel itself was delivered earlier this year by our partners Framatome.”

He then showed viewers the nuclear island for unit one, including the reactor cavity pool and the lance storage pool.

“Looking forward for the rest of 2023, the key activity is to fit the reactor support ring, which the actual reactor vessel will sit in; fit the equipment hatch that will allow us to seal this big containment equipment hatch hole, and then fit the polar crane,” he said.

“And they're the key steps then to actually fitting the dome for unit one. Once we've fitted the dome, we're able to start introducing the key reactor components here that will allow us to generate heat and actually produce steam for our turbine.”

The tour then went to the unit one turbine hall, which will house the largest turbine in the world. 

Since the last video update was released in June, the building's blue support columns have had their falsework removed, so they are now fully exposed. The cream structural steelwork is also visible.

“There's 10,700 tonnes of steel to be fitted that will allow us then to fit the 300-tonne crane, which will support operations, maintenance and installation of the turbine,” Mr Cann explained.

“Our plan is to hand this area over to General Electric, our turbine partner, before the end of this year.”

Viewers were then taken underground to the unit one heat sink, 30 metres under the ground.

Mr Cann said: “Eventually, this building will receive millions of tonnes of sea water that will go into the condensers that turn the steam that turns the turbine back to water to allow it to be reintroduced into the steam generators.”

Unit one's inlet tunnel stretches 3.2 kilometres out to sea.

The marine works will progress further this year, starting with the use of two jack-up vessels to install components required for the power station’s cooling water system.

Mr Cann said: “So for the remainder of 2023, the important milestone for us is to really mobilise the mechanical, electrical and HVAC partners into the pump house to start installing the pumps and cables and cable tray that we need to bring the building to life to support flooding this forebay in 2025.”

At the end of the video, he explains that productivity on unit two - which was most impacted by the Covid pandemic - has improved by 20 to 30 per cent.

He added: “This is really important to allow us to catch up on unit two, but also for our sister plant at Sizewell, where we can take those improvements, and perhaps even improve on them even more.”