A day after filing for bankruptcy, Westinghouse Electric Company announced that its AP1000 nuclear power plant design has been approved by regulators in the United Kingdom, where three of the AP1000 models are slated for the Moorside nuclear plant project.
Britain's Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and Environment Agency (EA) both cleared the design for development in Britain. The ONR issued a Design Acceptance Confirmation on the Westinghouse reactor, while the EA bestowed a Statement of Design Acceptability. Together, the two approvals comprise Britain's Generic Design Assessment (GDA) review.
“The successful completion of this rigorous review by the ONR and the EA has been many years in the making, and it represents a major milestone toward bringing a new generation of safe, clean energy to the United Kingdom through the Moorside Project,” said José Emeterio Gutiérrez, interim president and chief executive officer. “In addition, it expands the global regulatory pedigree of the AP1000 plant design and further confirms Westinghouse’s innovative safety technology.”
The Moorside Project, developed by NuGeneration Ltd., is planned to consist of three AP1000 units at West Cumbria in North West England. The project is designed to help secure the U.K.’s future energy supply by delivering affordable, low-carbon electricity as part of a balanced energy mix, Westinghouse said.
The GDA process for an AP1000 approval in Britain began long before Westinghouse's financial troubles became newsworthy. The company initiated the GDA process – which applies to England and Wales – in 2007. The company was then granted an Interim Design Acceptance Confirmation and an Interim Statement of Design Acceptability in December 2011.
At that point, with two Interim approvals in hand, Westinghouse paused the review process, while waiting to see if the AP1000 design would be put to use in Britain. When it was chosen by NuGen in 2014 for the Moorside project, Westinghouse restarted the review process.
Currently, there are eight AP1000 reactors under construction, four in the United States – in South Carolina and Georgia – and four in China at the Sanmen and Haiyang sites.
Westinghouse has said that its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing would not affect ongoing projects.