By Sonia Meetes, Cyber Era NG Special Correspondent, Switzerland

Global efforts to converge different types of small modular reactor technologies as well as their regulatory approaches are continuing to make strong progress, according to the latest meeting of the IAEA’s Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative.

The initiative, known as NHSI, was set up because the global deployment of advanced reactors and particularly SMRs requires a standardized design to be licensed in several countries in order to be quick and efficient, and for developers to achieve economies of scale. Harmonized regulatory approaches are also vital to enable fast and safe deployment of SMRs.

The third plenary meeting of NHSI was held in Vienna this week, prior to the opening to the Agency’s International Conference on Small Modular Reactors and their Applications, and covered progress so far, as well as discussions on the suggested direction for the next phase.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi opened the annual meeting, saying: “Hardly a day passes without very exciting news of some company striking a deal or somebody saying that it’s going to be doing something important and exciting in SMRs. NHSI is about what goes behind the headlines, what goes behind the expectations.”

The Director general added that SMRs are both “what the market needs and what the planet needs.”

Regulatory Convergence

“The global deployment of SMRs will need a degree of regulatory convergence,” added Mr. Grossi. “We’re not aiming at unison, as it’s impossible, but without some degrees of concrete collaboration where we can leverage what others are doing, the business model of modularity and flexibility is simply not going to work.” 

Industry Track

Director, Division of Nuclear Power of the IAEA, Aline des Cloizeaux explained the vision of the project is to “to make nuclear simpler while keeping it safe and secure”.

She added: “We are paving the way for SMR projects that are faster, simpler and more economical to deploy.” 

The industry track of NHSI has had more than 200 contributors from over 30 countries and has worked in four main areas of harmonization, including end user requirements, and collaboration on computer codes for monitoring the safety and performance of advanced nuclear reactors (NEXSHARE).

The short-term goals are to map pathways and reduce timelines and costs to both vendors and customers; to facilitate common approaches for regulatory approvals; and to gather lessons learned from SMR deployment models – with the long-term goal of preparing industry, end-users and countries for large-scale SMR deployment.

Regulatory Track

Director of the IAEA’s Division of Nuclear Installation Safety, Anna Hajduk Bradford explained the goals of the second track of the initiative. “The long-term aspiration of the NHSI regulatory track is the development of a global framework for regulatory reviews of advanced reactors. This is an ambitious goal.”

Steps towards that goal include building a high level of trust among regulatory bodies and an understanding of commonalities and differences among regulatory frameworks in different countries. 

NHSI has been working closely with national regulators while “always ensuring the member states’ keep their own sovereignty and decision making,” Bradford added.

“In addition, we envisage the establishment of a dedicated working group on nuclear security of SMRs, which will serve as another important resource for Member States.”

International Debate

Dozens of countries also gave their thoughts on NHSI’s progress so far and plans for the future. There was widespread agreement on the value of the work done in the first phase, and the direction planned for the second phase, with many topics raised for ongoing consideration.

Director-General, Federal Authority For Nuclear Regulation (FANR), United Arab Emirates Christer Viktorsson said: “It is clear this initiative is having an effect, it is already creating momentum for working towards harmonization and standardization. It’s clear that Phase II should focus on the implementation of projects from Phase I.”

Paul Fyfe from the United Kingdom’s Office For Nuclear Regulation (ONR) agreed: “Cooperation and collaboration between industry and regulators is key. The UK ONR strongly supports Phase II. There’s a real need for this work to be done.”

Executive Director for New Nuclear from the United States’ Nuclear Energy Institute Marcus Nichol agreed: “We share your visions that you articulated for both the industry track and to facilitate the regulatory frameworks and reduce unnecessary design changes, so we appreciate that. All of the proposals for Phase II are on the right track, all of those areas will be valuable.”

Representatives from regulators and industry spoke on a range of other questions relating to safeguards; safety and security issues; information sharing with newcomer countries; confidentiality; avoiding duplication of work; collaboration between regulators, designers and operators; choosing the best priorities; and ensuring technical experts are consulted.

NHSI is now moving to the next phase, which will be to implement many of the recommendations the working groups have come up with. 

Phase II will also focus on providing tools to help understand regulatory commonalities and differences better, it will examine technology-specific user requirements and explore what is needed to facilitate the approval of what is known as long-lead items.

The Value of SMRs

Nuclear power is the second-largest source of low carbon electricity today, following hydropower, and accounts for about 25 per cent of the world’s clean electricity. While currently operating reactors continue to be at the forefront of electricity decarbonization in many countries, nuclear innovation is bringing forth new technologies and designs such as SMRs, which may offer a viable option for achieving clean and abundant energy accessible to more countries.

SMRs have a power capacity of typically up to 300 MW(e)—about one third of the generating capacity of a traditional nuclear power reactor. Their components may be mass manufactured in factories and then transported and installed on sites, which may make them more affordable and faster to build. SMRs may also be sited in remote locations and in areas lacking sufficient transmission lines and grid capacity. Finally, SMRs are being considered for both electric and non-electric applications and are suitable for flexible operation, providing stability to electrical grids in integrated energy systems that combine nuclear, variable renewables, and energy storage to provide resilient and clean energy supply to different users in the form of heat, electricity, and hydrogen.