Technical Meeting on the Development of the IAEA’s Power Reactor Information System

Background

The Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) provides comprehensive information on the status, design characteristics and operating performance and experience of all nuclear power plants (NPPs) worldwide since 1971. Owing to its broad scope (basic information, design characteristics, energy production and losses, outages, and performance indicators), PRIS has been widely used in Member States of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and by many international organizations as a source of information on nuclear power worldwide.

The main purpose of the PRIS project is to foster the evaluation of status and trends in the operating performance of NPPs through standard and customized reports and analysis of subject areas affecting plant performance.

The IAEA is holding this regular biennial Technical Meeting on PRIS to present key areas of, and the latest trends in, nuclear power development and performance in Member States, and to discuss how PRIS should reflect those trends.

Objectives

The primary purpose of the event is to engage in comprehensive discussions on the main issues and achievements related to the PRIS project to date, as well as to set the future development priorities. In particular, we will focus on the crucial aspects of capturing the operating experience of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), Advanced Reactors, and Non-Electric Applications data collection expansion.

Target Audience

In view of the subject of the event, participation is limited to PRIS liaison officers and data providers who are directly involved in PRIS maintenance and development. Participation is solicited from representatives of NPPs and regulatory bodies, utilities, technical support organizations, developers, research organizations and international organizations engaged in this field. To ensure maximum effectiveness in the exchange of information, participants should be persons actively involved in the subject matter of the event.

Expected Outputs

The expected output of the event is to gather national liaisons officers and data providers at nuclear governmental authorities or individual NPPs to discuss and set the future programming of the PRIS programme. This will be achieved through:

•    Short presentations by participants on their Member States’ experience with submitting national data on an annual basis;

• Member States’ recommendation on enhancements of DAVA for improved data submission and data quality;
• Member States’ feedback on plans for the 2024 data collection
• Member States’ agreement on revamp of the PRIS Statistics and the PRIS public web page;

• Development of requirements for data collection on development and deployment of SMR and advanced reactors;
• Development of recommendations

Topics

The Technical Meeting will resemble a training workshop, with proposed discussions and presentations on the following topics:

• The PRIS DAVA project updates from IAEA, planned PRISTA system upgrade and PRIS Public web page updates;
• Member States’ experiences with PRIS DAVA;
• Construction experience and operating experience of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and advanced reactors;
• PRIS DAVA Non-Electric Applications Module data collection expansion;
• Categorization of outages and associated energy losses due to environmental causes;
• The PRIS training needs.

Participation and Registration

All persons wishing to participate in the event have to be designated by an IAEA Member State or should be members of organizations that have been invited to attend.

In order to be designated by an IAEA Member State, participants are requested to send the Participation Form (Form A) to their competent national authority (e.g. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Permanent Mission to the IAEA or National Atomic Energy Authority) for onward transmission to the IAEA by    10 October 2023. Participants who are members of an organization invited to attend are requested to send the Participation Form (Form A) through their organization to the IAEA by above deadline.

Selected participants will be informed in due course on the procedures to be followed with regard to administrative and financial matters.

Participants are hereby informed that the personal data they submit will be processed in line with the Agency’s Personal Data and Privacy Policy and is collected solely for the purpose(s) of reviewing and assessing the application and to complete logistical arrangements where required. The IAEA may also use the contact details of Applicants to inform them of the IAEA’s scientific and technical publications, or the latest employment opportunities and current open vacancies at the IAEA. These secondary purposes are consistent with the IAEA’s mandate.

Presentations

The IAEA encourages participants to give presentations on the work of their respective institutions that falls under the topics listed in Section F above. Please note that time for the presentations will be limited to ten minutes followed by a five-minute discussion period for each national presentation.

Presentations should be prepared as a Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) file. Computer‑based projection facilities at the IAEA will be provided. Authors are requested to provide the Scientific Secretary of the event (M.Gospodarczyk@iaea.org) with electronic copies of their presentation files in advance of their scheduled presentation slot, so that the files can be duly uploaded, no later than Wednesday, 6 December 2023. Electronic versions of the presentations are also necessary to ensure timely issuance of a report of the proceedings, which will be prepared and distributed to participants in electronic form.

Expenditures and Grants

No registration fee is charged to participants.

The IAEA is generally not in a position to bear the travel and other costs of participants in the event. The IAEA has, however, limited funds at its disposal to help meet the cost of attendance of certain participants. Upon specific request, such assistance may be offered to normally one participant per country, provided that, in the IAEA’s view, the participant will make an important contribution to the event.

The request for financial support should be made using the Grant Application Form (Form C) which has to be stamped, signed and submitted by the competent national authority to the IAEA together with the Participation Form (Form A) by 10 October 2023.

Venue

The event will be held in Room M2, Building M, of the Vienna International Centre (VIC) where the IAEA’s Headquarters are located. It will commence at 09:30 on Tuesday, 12 December 2023, and end at 13:00 on Friday, 15 December 2023. Participants must make their own travel and accommodation arrangements.