Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd’s 470 MW Small Modular Reactor design completes Step 1 of Generic Design Assessment
The Environment Agency, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) announced today that they are progressing to the next phase of their assessment of Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd’s 470 MW Small Modular Reactor (SMR) design.
The process, known as Generic Design Assessment (GDA), allows the regulators to begin assessing the safety, security, safeguards and environmental aspects of new reactor designs before site-specific proposals are brought forward.
Step 1 of the GDA began in April 2022 and this stage has now been successfully completed following preparatory work by Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd and the regulators.
Today also marks the start of Step 2 which is expected to last for 16 months.
Step 1 has involved agreeing the scope of the GDA which has been based on information supplied by Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd to ONR, the Environment Agency and NRW so the regulators can undertake a meaningful assessment of the design.
During the past year, Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd has completed all the requirements for Step 1 from the regulators’ guidance with good progress made in developing its organisation and arrangements to support GDA.
Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd has now launched a comments process on its new website, which enables anyone to submit comments and questions about the reactor design to the company for its response.
Relevant issues raised during the comments process, and Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd’s responses to these issues, will be used to help inform the regulators’ assessments throughout the rest of the GDA process.
Andrew Pynn, the Environment Agency’s Strategy and Policy Lead for the Rolls-Royce SMR GDA, said:
Rob Exley, ONR’s Head of Generic Design Assessment, said:
Natural Resources Wales is also involved in the GDA process and will be leading on engagement with people in Wales.
Paul Gibson, the Radioactivity & Industry Policy Team Leader from Natural Resources Wales, said:
The GDA process focuses on the design of a generic nuclear power station and is not site-specific.
The process is systematic and contains a number of steps, with the assessment getting increasingly detailed as the process develops.
A Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) or Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA), from ONR and the environmental regulators respectively, will only be issued at the end of Step 3 of the GDA if the design meets the high safety, security, safeguards, environmental protection and waste management standards expected by our regulatory frameworks.
These regulatory judgements do not guarantee the granting of a site licence or subsequent permissions issued under the conditions of a site licence for the construction of a power station based on the Rolls-Royce SMR design at a particular site in Great Britain.
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