Towards harmonisation in licensing of future nuclear power technologies in Europe: D2.1 – Licensing needs due to the specificities of innovative technologies

In the context of the HARMONISE project this report presents the findings within Task 2.1. The objective of the Task is to investigate the extent of the innovations contained in the novel designs proposed in the European panorama and their impact on the current safety framework.
The work is divided in two lines of action to cover the double purpose of the Task:
• a survey to be distributed to the main vendors and designers of fission and fusion systems in the European context so to retrieve the main design and safety-related innovations of the proposed technologies and
• an in-depth study to go deeper into the current safety framework so to better understand the impact of innovations on the applicability to advanced concepts.
For the in-depth study the reference safety framework used is that of the IAEA Safety Standards Series that is based on the extensive experience on water-based technologies. For the applicability review two reference systems have been selected, namely: ALFRED as representative of an innovative fission reactor and DEMO as representative of a fusion infrastructure.
The overall analysis, combining the results of the survey and the in-depth study, has highlighted how the current safety framework is a viable platform for building a more technology inclusive approach. Conserving high-level safety requirements should allow transposing the exceptional safety score of operating plants to more safety ambitious technologies. In the step from general principles to detail solutions, however, the effort for reaching technological neutrality could be particularly high whereas the opportunity could be explored for a mixed approach (i.e., technology neutral high-level requirements with technology specific recommendations).
The findings of this Task will serve as a stepping stone for the upcoming Work Package activities to define recommendations for a common approach regarding the evolution of the current licensing processes towards a harmonised one in the future.