The UK government has confirmed that it will assess no more than three nuclear reactor designs in the licensing process that will determine which technologies can be deployed in the country.
A prioritisation process will determine which of the four designs submitted for Generic Design Assessment (GDA) will proceed to the next stage of licensing, and will allow the nuclear regulators to focus resources on those designs that are most capable of being licensed and operational in the UK by 2022.
Four designs – AECL’s ACR1000, Areva’s EPR, GE-Hitachi’s ESBWR and Westinghouse’s AP1000 – were scrutinised under the first stage of GDA and the government recently announced that all had passed and were eligible to proceed to the next stage. The government will make a recommendation as to which three designs should be put forward by the end of April.
To help prioritise the designs, the government is inviting ‘credible’ nuclear power operators to nominate up to three designs that they would support, and to rank them by preference. This process will ensure that those designs that have the greatest chance of being built in the UK are prioritized.
The vendors of the four reactor designs have also been asked to provide evidence to support their design.
The next stage of GDA involves detailed assessment work on the designs and is expected to run until 2011.
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