TEPCO visit to new robotics centre
Sellafield Ltd this week hosted representatives from TEPCO – the company in charge of decommissioning the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear site in Japan – to West Cumbria to view the Sellafield site and the new robotics facility in Whitehaven.
The visitors had a tour of the robotics facility, RAICo1, which opens later this year to see work the company is doing with robots at long range (called LongOps) to decommission Sellafield Ltd’s nuclear facilities.
LongOps is a collaborative UK/Japan robotics project that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), TEPCO and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) are funding and UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) are delivering to deliver benefit at Sellafield and Fukushima. Chris Hope, decommissioning technical manager at Sellafield Ltd said: “We have hundreds of facilities that will need to be decommissioned in the future. We’re already working closely with the UKAEA to ensure this type of work can be used at Sellafield and other facilities across the UK.
“It's clear there are synergies with work elsewhere too, such as Fukushima-Daiichi. Our new facility includes a demonstration area for LongOps which will help us fully explore its potential long before it gets onto a nuclear site. We’re able to share skills and learning with our visitors from TEPCO."
