The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment
Agency (EA) have today announced that they have completed an
initial high level scrutiny of the UK HPR1000 reactor design.
Step 2 is the first assessment step of the
regulators’ Generic Design
Assessment (GDA) process for new nuclear power station
designs proposed for the UK in which they assess the
acceptability of safety, security and environment protection of
the design. An initial preparatory step was completed in November
2017.
The regulators have not identified at this stage of the GDA
process any fundamental safety, security or environmental issues
that would prevent the issue of a Design Acceptance Confirmation
(DAC) and a Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA).
China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) and EDF Energy,
referred to as the requesting parties, through their joint
venture company General Nuclear System Ltd (GNS), wrote to ONR
and EA requesting entry to the GDA process in October 2016. The
UK government requested that the regulators begin the GDA in
January 2017, following confirmation of GNS and the Regulators’
readiness to commence the process.
The GDA has a number of steps, with the technical assessment
becoming increasingly detailed as they progress. ONR and EA
publish reports at the end of each step which provide an update
on the assessment and highlight any concerns or technical issues
that have been raised.
The regulators’ assessments have been documented in a series of
reports that have been published on the joint
regulators’ GDA website
ONR’s conclusions, based on the information examined so far,
include:
- Overall, the interactions with GNS throughout Step 2 of GDA
have been constructive. GNS have worked consistently hard to
ensure that UK regulatory expectations will be met
- We have seen strong commitment from GNS to learn lessons from
Steps 1 and 2 of the GDA and to improve their working
arrangements
- GNS and ONR have completed the preparatory work necessary to
enable commencement of Step 3 of GDA
- There is still a considerable amount of work that will need
to be undertaken by GNS going forward in the GDA process,
requiring significant resource across all of the topic areas for
GNS
EA’s conclusions, based on the information examined so far,
include:
- GNS has an appropriate management system in place to control
the content and accuracy of the information it provides for GDA
- The annual impact of radiation from the UK HPR1000 on people
is likely to be below the UK public radiological dose limit and
the constraint for any new source
- The submission made by GNS for step 2 assessment does not
contain enough information for us to carry out a detailed
assessment
Following the completion of this initial high-level technical
assessment, the process will now move on to its next more
detailed design assessment stage.
At the regulators’ request, GNS set up a comments process that
enables people to see and comment on the submissions made to the
regulators. GNS responds to relevant comments and questions that
it receives. The regulators also see the comments and questions
submitted, as well as the responses provided and use these to
help inform their work. The comments process is open throughout
the GDA until about four months before the end of the assessment.
Read the ONR reports
Read the Environment Agency’s full
report and summary report
