After building the first operational advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) nuclear power station at Dungeness, the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) proposed their third AGR station in 1967 to be situated on the edge of the Durham coalfield, near the seaside resort of Seaton Carew.

Construction was delayed in 1970, when the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate declared that they were unhappy with part of the station's boiler design, setting the CEGB back £25 million.

[5] The station's reactors were supplied by the National Nuclear Corporation, and its generating sets by the General Electric Company.

[8] Nuclear fuel for Hartlepool power station is delivered and removed via a loading/unloading facility on a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) branch from the Durham Coast Line.

At 19:18 on 20 April 2013, a small fire broke out in the turbine hall of Unit 2 at the power station while Reactor 2 was being brought back online.

[13] The power station was originally expected to shut down in 2009, but was given permission by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) for an extension of five years in 2007, meaning that it could continue to generate until 2014.

[4][8] The company then began work to extend station lifetime to 2024 and beyond,[14][15] and an announcement was made in November 2013 that the plant would have a further extension to its operating life of 5 years taking the expected decommissioning date to 2024.

[18] In December 2024, in response to concerns over energy security following delays to Hinkley Point C, EDF announced a further one year extension in Hartlepool production until March 2027.

[19] In July 2008, the plant's then-operator British Energy, suggested that the site would be a good location for a replacement nuclear power station.

[20] Then a year later in July 2009, the UK government named Hartlepool on a list of eleven sites in England and Wales, where new nuclear power stations could be built.