“HARMONISE”: Outcomes from a Year and a Half of Dedication to the Euratom Project
At the end of 2023, another (third) workshop of stakeholders was held in the online format under the Euratom project “HARMONISE” (Towards Harmonization in Licensing of Future Nuclear Power Technologies in Europe). 43 participants took part in the event, including three SSTC NRS researchers. During the workshop, information on the overall project progress over the past eighteen months was presented.
The members of the “HARMONIZE” consortium informed the workshop participants in detail about the activities of individual Work Packages of the project. Thus, within the framework of Work Package 1, the reporting documents “D1.5 – Assessment of the IAEA Safety Objectives in Advanced Fission Reactors” and “D1.6 – Assessment of the Safety Cases of Large Fusion Facilities”, which were also presented to the general public during the International Conference “Nuclear Energy for New Europe”. In the process of carrying out the tasks under this Work Package, the SSTC NRS experts carried out assessment of the application/implementation of safety goals and other requirements established by IAEA documents in innovative designs of reactor installations, including light water small modular reactors and generation 4 reactors. Based on the work results, aspects of new reactor technologies that are not covered by existing IAEA documents were identified, and proposals to improve IAEA requirements were developed in order to reduce the dependence of specific formulations on the technological features of nuclear installations and ensure their applicability to innovative reactors.
A brief summary of the two-dimensional harmonization approach adopted in Work Package 2 was provided, the cornerstone of which are the degree of consideration of the technological features of the reactor installation and the degree of detailing of regulatory requirements. The starting point for the research was a questionnaire for developers of innovative designs of nuclear installations in Europe with the aim of a deeper study of the current regulatory and legal system of ensuring safety and its readiness for innovative designs of nuclear installations. The conclusions are described in the document “D2.1 – Licensing needs due to the specificities of innovative technologies”. The SSTC NRS contributed to the development of the questionnaire: the questions prepared by the SSTC NRS concerned design aspects and approaches to the safety of innovative nuclear systems “System safety claims” in order to determine their features.
Activities under Work Package 3 of the project started at the end of 2023. Within this Task, the development of the concept of regulatory requirements based on the application of a risk-informed approach and the assessment of operational indicators is envisaged. Currently, the study of international experience and the approaches of regulatory authorities to determination of qualitative and quantitative criteria and safety targets, taking into account the results of probabilistic safety analysis and risk assessments, is in progress.
The objective of Work Package 4 is to develop proposals for codes and standards that will facilitate the introduction of the latest technologies in the nuclear industry by simplifying, accelerating and harmonizing their licensing and qualification/certification. A questionnaire, which was developed to determine the need for such codes and standards on the part of potential users and suppliers of the relevant technologies, was discussed during the event. The outcomes documented in the Report “D4.2 – Codes and Standards Needs” were also discussed.
For reference: “HARMONISE” is a project studying the issue of licensing harmonization of future nuclear energy technologies in Europe, implemented as part of the Euratom Research and Training Program for 2021-2025 (Horizon Euratom) and co-funded by the European Union.
The project outcomes will be distributed among the nuclear safety regulatory authorities of the EU member states, including the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, as materials for consideration during the safety inspections and licensing of future fission and fusion facilities.
