DEPARTMENT FOR
BUSINESS, ENTERPRISE AND REGULATORY REFORM News Release (2008/57)
issued by The Government News Network on 20 March 2008
The Government
today announced the start of a prioritisation process to select no
more than three nuclear reactor designs to proceed to the next
stage of Generic Design Assessment (GDA).
The objective of this is to allow the nuclear regulators to focus
their resources on those designs which are most capable of being
licensed and operational in the UK within a 2016-2022 timeframe.
The nuclear regulators, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and
the Environment Agency (EA), recently announced the findings from
the first step of GDA carried out on the four eligible designs
submitted for new nuclear power stations. They found no shortfalls
at this stage - in terms of safety, security or the environment -
that would prevent any of them from ultimately being constructed
on licensed sites in the UK.
The next steps of GDA encompass the majority of the detailed
assessment work on the designs and is expected to run until 2011.
As all four designs - from AECL, Areva, GE-Hitachi and Toshiba
Westinghouse - are eligible for next step of GDA, the Department
for Business and Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has started a
process to recommend to the regulators which three designs should
proceed to the later stages of GDA. The details of this process
were included in the recent White Paper on Nuclear Power.
In support of this process 'credible nuclear power
operators' (as defined in the White Paper) are being invited
to nominate a maximum of three designs they wish to support in the
later steps of GDA, and to rank the designs according to their
preference for deployment. Operators are being requested to give
reasons for their nominations and rankings. This is to ensure that
those designs that have the greatest chance of being built in this
country by a future operator are prioritised.
In addition, the vendors of the four reactor designs have been
asked for evidence to support their design through the
prioritisation process.
Eligible reactor design vendors and credible nuclear power
operators will have until Wednesday 9 April 2008 to submit the information.
Following this, the Secretary of State for Business and
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform will make recommendations to HSE
and Environment Agency on the designs that should be given the
highest priority for progressing to the next steps of GDA. This
will take place by the end of April 2008.
Notes for editors
1. The Nuclear White Paper Meeting the Energy Challenge: A White
Paper on Nuclear Power can be found at: http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/nuclear-whitepaper/page42765.html.
2. Generic Design Assessment (GDA) is a process intended to
ensure that the safety, security and environmental implications of
new nuclear power station design issues are assessed before an
application is made to build that design at a particular site.
3. GDA is a process undertaken by the regulators - Environment
Agency and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and Office of
Civil Nuclear Security of the Health and Safety Executive - which
commenced in August 2007.
4. The regulators have published a series of reports on their
findings so far which can be viewed at http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors
5. The four designs subject to the initial assessment were:
* AECL - for its ACR 1000 design
* Areva - for its EPR
design
* GE-Hitachi - for its ESBWR design
*
Toshiba-Westinghouse Electric Company - for its AP1000 design
6. The Nuclear White Paper stated that because the later stages
of GDA will be more demanding on the regulators' resources,
it is unlikely that more than three designs can be assessed
concurrently within the overall GDA timeframe of 3 to 31/2 years.
Therefore if all four designs accepted for the first step
successfully proceed through this step, a prioritisation process
will be needed to select the three designs to proceed to the next
stage. Details of the prioritisation process can be found in
paragraphs 3.37-3.45 of the Nuclear White Paper
7. A credible nuclear power operator is one which:
* Currently operates a nuclear power plant anywhere in the world; and
* Currently operates an electricity generating station subject to
UK health, safety and environmental regulation, or which has made
a public commitment to become an operator of an electricity
generating station (with a capacity in excess of 50MW) by
2016-2022 in a market subject to UK health, safety and
environmental regulation.
8. Information from credible nuclear power operators should be
submitted to: Michael Sugden, Department for Business, Enterprise
and Regulatory Reform, Bay 127, 1 Victoria Street, London, SW1H
0ET or e-mail michael.sugden@berr.gsi.gov.uk
9. The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
helps UK business succeed in an increasingly competitive world.
It promotes business growth and a strong enterprise economy, leads
the better regulation agenda and champions free and fair markets.
It is the shareholder in a number of Government-owned assets and
it works to secure, clean and competitively priced energy supplies.