Nuclear power in the United Kingdom Nuclear power in the United Kingdom Nuclear power in the United Kingdom generates around a quarter of the country's electricity as of 2016, projected to rise to a third by 2035. The UK has 15 operational nuclear reactors at seven plants (14 advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGR) and one pressurised water reactor (PWR)), as well as nuclear reprocessing plants at Sellafield and the Tails Management Facility (TMF) operated by Urenco in Capenhurst. The United Kingdom established the world's first civil nuclear programme, opening a nuclear power station, Calder Hall at Windscale, England, in 1956. At the peak in 1997, 26% of
Torness Nuclear Power Station AGR station. The construction, which was undertaken by a consortium known as National Nuclear Corporation ('NNC'), began in 1980. The reactors were supplied by NNC and the turbines by GEC. Torness was the last of the United Kingdom's second generation nuclear power plants to be commissioned (25 May 1988). The station consists of two advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGR) capable of producing a peak rating of 1364 MWe. Upon deregulation of the United Kingdom's electricity generation market it passed to the state-owned Scottish Nuclear, privatised as part of British Energy which was sold to the French company EDF in January 2009,