Guidance on generic design assessment

HSE and the other nuclear regulators have published the following guidance material on the generic design assessment process:

• Guidance on the overall assessment process issued by the nuclear regulators jointly:
  Guide to regulatory Processes for Generic Design Assessment of New Nuclear Power Stations [106KB]
• Guidance from HSE’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on how it will assess the safety of new nuclear power station designs:
  Nuclear Power Station Generic Design Assessment - Guidance to Requesting Parties (version 2) [155KB]
  
• Guidance from HSE’s Office of Civil Nuclear Security:
  OCNS guidance document for generic design assessment activities [102KB]
• OCNS Management of sensitive nuclear information during the generic design assessment of nuclear technologies (Version 2) [60KB]

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
  

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 principal regulators to be much more closely coordinated. For example, a Joint Programme Office is being established to administer the process on behalf of all the regulators..
• By making the process transparent and open, 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 in the investment process.