Stakeholders that represent safety authorities, international organisations, research organisations, industry and non-nuclear communities were identified and invited to project meetings. In these meetings the stakeholders were informed regarding the HARMONISE objectives and progress while they provided their feedback. The interaction with the group of stakeholders assisted the project evolution and collected additional input to be considered. Input of particular interest regarding the harmonisation efforts was obtained from the civil aviation experience.
The preliminary safety assessments of innovative fission and fusion installations were analysed. The ALFRED, SMR, ITER, DEMO and W7-X cases, employing a graded approach to ascertain the safety assessment scope, were taken under consideration. In addition, the top-level safety objectives of the DEMO and ITER fusion facilities were reviewed. The review outcomes have been documented in D1.5 “Assessment of the IAEA safety objectives in advanced fission reactors” and D1.6 “Assessment of the safety cases of large fusion facilities”.
The need to consider the innovations in advanced reactor concepts along with the will to preserve the founding philosophy and intent of the current safety and licensing framework steered the applicability review of ALFRED and DEMO. The main challenges stemmed from the lack of experience in implementing the existing safety framework to different designs, while also maintaining the safety standard level. The analysis outcome is discussed in D2.1 “Licensing needs due to the specificities of innovative technologies”.
A prescriptive-based regulatory approach establishes detailed requirements with acceptance criteria and prescriptive regulations that define clear expectations for the regulatory body and the operating organisations. Risk-Informed Performance-Based (RIPB) approaches, methods and tools applied in the nuclear industry for the assessment of nuclear safety were reviewed to further investigate the transition path from a prescriptive-based approach to a performance-based approach. Details may be found in D3.1 “Report on the application of risk insights and performance-based requirements”.
Following a survey, feedback was collected regarding component assessments, methodologies, codes, and standards pertinent to the safety of nuclear installations representing various technologies under development (i.e. water cooled SMRs, lead and lead-bismuth cooled SMRs, MSRs, HTGRs and fusion plants). The findings revealed specific needs that could be used to delimit the boundaries of harmonisation and standardisation on component assessments, methodologies, codes, and standards pertinent to the safety of existing nuclear installations.
