The UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation, the Environment Agency, and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) announced on 30 July that they are progressing to the next step of their assessment of Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd’s 470 MWe Small Modular Reactor design.
The Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process allows the regulators to begin assessing the safety, security, safeguards and environmental aspects of new reactor designs before site-specific proposals are brought forward.
GDA is an enabling and efficient way of helping to ensure that new nuclear power stations will meet high standards of safety, security, environmental protection and waste management while providing the Requesting Party the means to reduce overall project risks and gain increasing levels of regulatory confidence in their design.
The Rolls-Royce SMRGDA began in April 2022 with a year-long initiation step, followed by Step 2, a 16-month assessment looking at the fundamentals of the design. Step 2 has now been successfully completed, leading to the granting – for the first time since the modernised GDA process was launched – of Step 2 GDA statements.
Today also marks the start of Step 3 for the Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd GDA.
Step 2 is the first substantive technical assessment step of GDA, building upon the work to agree the scope and project arrangements undertaken during Step 1. The focus of the assessment was towards the fundamental adequacy of the design and safety, security, safeguards and environment cases, and the suitability of the methodologies, approaches, codes, standards and philosophies which form the building blocks for the generic design.
During the Step 2 process, Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd completed all the requirements from the regulators’ guidance.
Rob Exley, ONR’s head of Generic Design Assessment, said: “The Rolls-Royce SMR GDA is one of firsts. We are the first regulators to assess this reactor design, determining whether it meets our robust safety, security, safeguards and environmental protection standards in Great Britain. It is also the first time we have followed the modernised GDA process, looking at an SMR design.
“ONR is satisfied that Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd are progressing and as regulators, we can now continue into Step 3 assessing in more detail the evidence that supports the claims made about the design in the Step 2 submissions.
Saffron Price-Finnerty, the Environment Agency’s New Reactors Programme manager, said: “We have not currently identified any significant issues or concerns with the design and Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd has been able to demonstrate that environmental protection and radioactive waste management are key areas of focus for its developing design. We all recognise there is still a significant amount of work to do and are now commencing the detailed assessment part of the process. During Step 3 we’ll consult with the public and stakeholders on our preliminary view of the acceptability of the design.”
The Rolls Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd comments process continues remains active through Step 3. It enables anyone to submit comments and questions about the reactor design to the company for its response.
The GDA process focuses on the design of a generic nuclear power station and is not site-specific. The process is systematic and contains a number of steps, with the assessment getting increasingly detailed as the process develops.
A Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) or Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA), from ONR and the environmental regulators respectively, will only be issued at the end of Step 3 of the GDA if the design meets the high safety, security, safeguards, environmental protection and waste management standards expected by our regulatory frameworks.
