The need to ensure robust safety demonstration and a suitable regulatory framework for evolutionary and innovative reactors were key issues that experts agreed to at the 7th International Conference on Topical Issues in Nuclear Installation Safety – Strengthening Safety of Evolutionary and Innovative Reactor Designs (TIC2022), which recently took place at the IAEA’s headquarters in Vienna.
The conference, organized by the IAEA in collaboration with the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC), the European Technical Safety Organisations Network (ETSON), the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD-NEA) and the World Nuclear Association (WNA), brought together over 300 nuclear safety regulators, plant designers and operators, and technical support organizations from 63 countries and five international organizations, to reflect on safety considerations related to evolutionary and innovative reactor designs.
“Evolutionary and innovative reactor designers claim safety advantages over existing designs,” said Lydie Evrard, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security. “These claims must also be backed by robust safety demonstrations,” she underlined.
With more than 80 small modular reactor (SMR) designs under development in 19 countries, key emerging challenges that were discussed focused on how to adequately demonstrate that the safety of reactor design considering the limited experience and current levels of maturity of first-of-a kind technologies.
Participants agreed that there was a need for integration of deterministic and probabilistic approaches for a wide range of safety topics, such as defence in depth; safety classification of structures, systems and components, and consideration of a holistic approach to 3S -Safety, Security and Safeguards elements, in the early design stage of innovative nuclear reactors.
Opportunities identified in this field included the milestones of the IAEA Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative (NHSI), an initiative that was embraced as a necessary mechanism to enable progress and facilitate the safe and secure deployment of SMRs. Conference participants identified several actions and recommendations. They called on regulators to be receptive to any necessary changes to harmonise approaches to further strengthen safety, and to advance their regulatory frameworks to address new technologies. They called on the industry to work on common approaches on codes and standards, and sharing experimental programmes.
