The award-winning -u2 billion Sizewell B nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast north east of Ipswich is the UK's first pressurized water reactor (PWR) electricity generation plant. Completed in 1995 it set new design and safety standards for PWR stations and has become a model for future PWR developments both in the UK and overseas. Compared with US designs the Sizewell B reactor design has 10 per cent thicker primary containment and a further 300mm thick secondary containment dome. The five refereed papers in this special issue of ICE Proceedings are written by senior members of the project team and cover the planning, design and construction of the power station together with its 56 m deep diaphragm cut-off wall and 900 m immersed tube cooling water tunnels.