Guidance on generic design assessment

The Nuclear Regulators have published the following guidance material on the Generic Design Assessment process:

• Guide to regulatory Processes for Generic Design Assessment of New Nuclear Power Stations [106KB]
  Guidance on the overall assessment process issued by the nuclear regulators jointly.
• Nuclear Power Station Generic Design Assessment - Guidance to Requesting Parties (version 2) [155KB]
  Guidance from HSE’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on how it will assess the safety of new nuclear power station designs.
• OCNS guidance document for generic design assessment activities [102KB]
  Guidance from HSE’s Office of Civil Nuclear Security.
• OCNS Management of sensitive nuclear information during the generic design assessment of nuclear technologies (Version 2) [60KB]
• New Nuclear power stations - Safety assessment in an international context [PDF 280KB]
  This report discusses the international context of HSE’s assessment of new nuclear power stations and it shows how NII takes account of this while discharging its duty to protect people and society in the UK.  It is a working document and may be revised and updated in due course in the light of developments.  If anyone wishes to comment on the document, they should do so by e-mail to new.reactor.build@hse.gsi.gov.uk, or by post to the Joint Programme Office, 4N2, Redgrave Court, Merton Road, Bootle, L20 7HS.

Guidance from the Environment Agency setting out how it will assess environmental issues:

• Process and Information Document for Generic Assessment of Candidate Nuclear Power Plants
  

These guidance documents were published (in January 2007) as working documents which could be revised as necessary in the light of experience.  On 16 July 2007, a revised version of the main HSE document, Nuclear Power Station Generic Design Assessment - Guidance to Requesting Parties (version 2) was published which took into account developments since the original version was published in January.

The above suite of guidance sets out a coordinated design assessment process which has a number of advantages:

• The process allows the Regulators to become involved at the earliest stage in a project, long before a site-specific proposal is made. This allows better focusing of regulatory resource at a stage when greater influence can be brought to bear on the safety standards and features adopted in any proposed design.
• The new process allows the work of the Regulators to be much more closely coordinated. For example, a Joint Programme Office has been established to administer the process on behalf of all the regulators.
• By making the process open and transparent, and by encouraging public participation at key stages, public confidence in the regulatory process should be increased.
• Separating design issues from site and operator issues will improve the efficiency of the regulatory process, reduce the risks for operators during the later licensing phase, and increase levels of certainty important to investment decisions.