National Nuclear Laboratory

Type	State-owned limited company
Industry	Nuclear services and technology
Predecessor	Nexia Solutions
Founded	23 July 2008
Headquarters	Central Laboratory, Sellafield, Cumbria, United Kingdom
Number of locations	Central Laboratory Windscale Laboratory Workington Laboratory Preston Laboratory Chadwick House Culham Centre for Fusion Energy Stonehouse
Key people	Prof. Paul Howarth (managing director)
Owner	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Number of employees	approx 800
Divisions	Waste Management and Decommissioning, Fuel Cycle Solutions and Reactor Operations Support
Website	nnl.co.uk

The National Nuclear Laboratory (informally NNL, formerly Nexia Solutions) is a UK government owned and operated nuclear services technology provider covering the whole of the nuclear fuel cycle. It is fully customer-funded and operates at six locations in the United Kingdom. Its customers have included the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Sellafield Ltd, Westinghouse, the Health and Safety Executive, the Ministry of Defence, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, VT Nuclear and British Energy. It also has extensive links with academia, including collaborative agreements on waste immobilisation and disposal with the University of Sheffield and on nuclear materials research with the University of Manchester.

The organisation began to come together in 1996 when a number of separate research and development facilities began to coalesce into a single unit within British Nuclear Fuels. In 2003, this Research and Technology business was re-launched as Nuclear Sciences and Technology Services (NSTS) to ready the business for transformation into a fully commercial entity. In 2005, following the restructuring of the wider nuclear industry, Nexia Solutions was formed out of NSTS, as a wholly owned subsidiary of BNFL.

In July 2006, the UK Government stated its intention to preserve and develop key R&D capabilities potentially as part of a National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL). In October 2006, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling announced the establishment of the NNL, to be based on Nexia Solutions and the British Technology Centre at Sellafield. The NNL was formally announced by John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in an announcement at the Sellafield Visitors Centre on 23 July 2008.