Standards for Success

As the global community works towards achieving the ambitious goals set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the consensus is increasingly clear: nuclear energy has a significant role to play in decarbonizing the energy and industrial sectors. However, in order to expand the deployment of nuclear power on a vast scale, including through the use of advanced technologies such as small modular reactors (SMRs), novel approaches are needed to implement new build projects sustainably and at cost and to ensure a high level of safety and security.

The IAEA’s Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative (NHSI), launched in 2022, aims to facilitate the deployment of safe and secure SMRs and other advanced reactors through harmonized regulatory approaches and industrial standardization.

Focusing on standardized development, manufacturing and construction, members of the NHSI Industry Track are set to publish two white papers this year: one providing guidance on the challenges of harmonizing inspections of safety significant high integrity components, and the other highlighting the need to better harmonize non-nuclear codes and standards across jurisdictions. A third paper is planned regarding practical steps for early engagement in the use of high quality industrial grade components in safety systems. Members of the NHSI Regulatory Track, who are focused on the development of processes that enhance regulatory cooperation, are developing a comprehensive publication to support regulatory cooperation on design reviews and launching a multinational regulatory review process that will enable regulators to conduct joint reviews of SMR design.

Differing inspection protocols for long lead items, or items with production times lengthy enough to impact the final project delivery date, are a further concern. Pressure vessels, for instance, must generally be inspected by the end customer with the involvement of regulators or their notified organizations, beginning with material selection and continuing throughout each fabrication phase. This entails a significant time burden and results in potentially redundant inspections. By contrast, the completion of a streamlined process long before the submission of a construction license application would enable SMR projects to be implemented on shorter timelines.

“By mutually recognizing some long lead item inspection activities, there is the potential to dramatically reduce project life spans and manufacturing risks,” says Aline des Cloizeaux, Director of the IAEA Division of Nuclear Power. “This could be especially beneficial when production ramps up and SMR long lead items bound for disparate jurisdictions are being manufactured simultaneously. There is an excellent opportunity to optimize resources here”.

Nuclear power plants (NPPs) are subject to a wide range of regulations, many of which fall outside the scope of nuclear regulatory bodies. At a technical meeting held in late 2023, a working group within the NHSI Industry Track reviewed potential solutions to challenges presented by non-nuclear codes and standards. Suggestions included encouraging project owners and operators to engage early with relevant government agencies, and working together with suppliers early on to strengthen the supply chain by lowering commercial, project and quality management risks that might be present in the proposed deployment areas. Furthermore, it is essential to understand procurement dynamics and ensure compliance with local and national regulations in order to ensure that projects are completed on time and on budget.

The long-term aspiration of the NHSI Regulatory Track is to advance towards the development of a global framework for the regulatory review of advanced nuclear reactor designs, in particular SMRs. This global framework could be presented as a set of documents and procedures outlining common regulatory requirements and an understanding of how to meet them, which would enable joint regulatory reviews of advanced reactors to be undertaken. The global framework would also facilitate the sharing of reviews and resources and the achievement of a shared review outcome.

“The first step for the development of such a framework is for regulators to cooperate with each other during regulatory reviews of advanced reactor designs. The NHSI Regulatory Track has developed approaches for collaboration on regulatory reviews. Regulatory body experts developed these approaches, which take account of feedback from the industry,” says Anna Bradford, Director of the IAEA Division of Nuclear Installation Safety.

The NHSI Regulatory Track has investigated solutions that would enable information sharing among regulatory bodies during their reviews and it is planning to draft a memorandum of cooperation — an overarching, non-binding agreement that would demonstrate the aspiration of signatory regulatory bodies to work together and share information. Moreover, the Regulatory Track is developing a multinational pre-licensing regulatory design review that would enable regulators to jointly evaluate specific technical areas of a proposed reactor design and identify technical issues that might present difficulties or raise questions during the subsequent national regulatory assessment. The process would allow participants to identify areas in which there are important regulatory differences between countries, as well as areas in which additional efforts would be required to help standardize design.

Furthermore, NHSI is developing processes that would enable regulators to collaborate during ongoing national reviews and leverage other regulators’ reviews, potentially resulting in resource savings for the regulator and industry.

As the NHSI moves towards the goal of maximizing its contribution to achieving net zero by 2050, its work is progressing according to plan, and the findings of both the Industry Track and the Regulatory Track will be presented at the NHSI plenary in June and at the IAEA International Conference on Small Modular Reactors and their Applications, to be held in Vienna in October 2024.