JULES HOROWITZ OPERATION PLAN 2040

Project Information

JHOP2040

Grant agreement ID: 899360

DOI

10.3030/899360

Project closed

EC signature date 18 May 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 30 September 2023

Funded under

• Euratom

Total cost

€ 1 572 117,50

EU contribution

€ 1 100 501,20

Coordinated by

TEKNOLOGIAN TUTKIMUSKESKUS VTT OY
Finland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - JHOP2040 (JULES HOROWITZ OPERATION PLAN 2040)

Reporting period: 2022-03-01 to 2023-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Material Testing Reactors have been for many decades key research tools for fuel and material behaviour studies under neutron flux supporting nuclear industries, research institutes and regulators. Whatever the progress in
simulation, MTRs will remain a necessity for the qualification of new fuels and materials under irradiation notably in support to safety demonstration. Currently, in response to this need, the Jules Horowitz Reactor (JHR) is under construction. The JHOP2040 proposal presents a Coordination and Support Action aiming to 1) bring together with the JHR consortium of key actors, all relevant European nuclear research associations and member states that are not represented in the JHR consortium and 2) to produce strategic research roadmaps for the operation of the JHR. These roadmaps will cover both the first 4-year programme period and the following 11 years of operation. The outcome of JHOP2040 will be financial and programme model for Euratom taking into account also the governance and cost breakdown of the programmes. JHOP2040 will strengthen and widen the JHR research network by bringing together relevant stakeholders and interest groups to identify and review their current and future needs for fuel, material and technology issues within and outside of the current JHR consortium. Extensive utilization of the JHR via Euratom access rights and full use of the planned JHR capacity by promoting and enhancing the collaboration between potential users is the ultimate goal. The main advantage of this proposal is that all European partners of the JHR consortium are behind the proposal and several EU member states outside the JHR consortium and European institutions have expressed already their interest in being involved in the roadmap work. Important part of the proposal will be the communication with EU member states via JRC. JHOP2040 will have a close connection to the NFRP-08 CSA in this same call.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The beginning of the project focused on the first 4-yar operation planning. For the fuels and ,material, different test types were mapped and test matrices originally developed by the three JHR working groups were updated. The general JHR construction plans have caused some changes to the planning but in overall the starting fleet of experimental devices is now known and the planning of the experimental programme could be done.

The second part of the project focused on longterm planning for the first 15 years. The experimental fleet of the reactor is known pretty much today, but the uncertainty comes from the fact that at the moment the nuclear scheme is changing very rapidly and the planned test matrices may not be valid after ten years from now on. In any case the need for flexibility in planning is recognised and the target after this project is that these plans will be updated before the actual operation starts.

In parallel with the test programme planning the European co-operation has been planned and the prerequisites for the JHR European Stakeholder Network (JHR-ESN) have been established. In the discussions so far with the stakeholders the technologies beyond the LWR have been raised to be an important topic. The Euratom stakeholders have indicated their interest in participating in the JHR-ESN. Five International Scientific Advisory Group meetings and two workshops (15-16 Sep 2021 and 8 Jun 2023) were held .

The final outcome from the 2nd period has been the resourcing and organisation plans for Euratom. From the resourcing point of view the project offers four different options for Euratom how they could organise themselves for using the access rights. The project consortium recognises that most likely none of these options is not accessible as such but some sort of hybrid solution is needed. But in any case it has been important top recognise the pros and cons in each option. For financing the Euratom participation options were also proposed, but the project consortium leaves the final choice for Euratom, of course. The final conclusion is that there is no easy solution for the resourcing but it will need further discussions and iteration between the EC and the JHR organisation.

The results from the project have been disseminated in public. Four journal papers have been written and three conference presentations held. Also a newsletter has been prepraed and delivered via EERA and SNETP. The plan is still to disseminate the results especially via SNETP.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In addition to the originally planned work, the JHR Governing board established a small group to make a roadmap for the pre-JHR era. As it still takes the on-going decade to finalise the construction of the JHR, it is important that the co-operation stays alive and expands during the pre-JHR era.

The JHR GB has been the main group for indicating the results from the JHOP2040. The GB needs to take this planning into account when they make further decisions on planning of operation. This planning will also need to be reflected in the forthcoming renewal of JHR consortium agreement, as the renewed agreement will define in detail the scope and frame for co-operation in the operation phase of the JHR.

All expected results were achieved in the project. in addition, more dissemination activities were performed tahn originally thought.

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