Britain's Office of Nuclear Regulation has completed Step 3 of the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) of the UK HPR1000 design, and taken the decision to progress to Step 4 of the GDA, the agency said.
During Step 3, ONR increased its regulatory scrutiny and undertook a more detailed assessment of the design, focusing on the methods and approaches used by the GDA Requesting Party1 to underpin their safety and security claims, the regulator said.
In a statement, Ana Gomez-Cobo, ONR’s Head of UK HPR1000 Regulations said the objective for the design review “is to provide confidence that the proposed design is capable of being constructed, operated and decommissioned in accordance with the standards of safety, security and environmental protection required in Great Brittain”
She noted that the assessment included work across 19 technical disciplines which included “covered topics of a cross-cutting nature.”
In addition, while calling for more substantiation on some aspects of the design, she gave the reviewed technology, to date, a green light. “Our assessment to date has not identified any fundamental safety or security shortfalls that would prevent us issuing a Design Acceptance Confirmation for the HPR1000 design,” she said.
A lot of work remains, she said. “We will continue to rigorously assess safety and security submissions through Step 4 of GDA.”
Three parties have requested the GDA assessment: China General Nuclear, French utility EDF and General Nuclear International, a British-based interest. The UK-based firm General Nuclear Systems LTD was created to process the GDA request on the UK HPR1000, the HPR1000 adapted for British regulations.