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Towards European Licencing of Small Modular Reactors

Project description

Ensuring small-scale reactors are a safer form of nuclear power

Light water small modular reactors (LW-SMRs) are a promising new technology whose features make them a potentially attractive energy source. The EU-funded ELSMOR project seeks to design methods and tools for stakeholders to assess and verify LW-SMRs’ safety when installed across Europe. It will gather, analyse and disseminate information on LW-SMRs’ potential and challenges to target audiences such as citizens, decision-makers and regulators. The project will also devise procedures to evaluate their safety, enhance European experimental research infrastructure to help in assessing future LW-SMR safety features, and enrich European nuclear safety analysis codes for evaluating future LW-SMR safety. Ultimately, the licensing procedure will be smoother and more complete.

Objective

ELSMOR (towards European Lisencing of Small MOdular Reactors) aims to create methods and tools for the European stakeholders to assess and verify the safety of light water small modular reactors (LW-SMR) that would be deployed in Europe.

ELSMOR advances the understanding and technological solutions pertaining to light water SMRs on several fronts:
• Collection, analysis, and dissemination of the information on the potential and challenges of Small Modular Reactors to various stakeholders, including the public, decision makers and regulators.
• Development of the high level methods to assess the safety of LW-SMRs
• Improvement of the European experimental research infrastructure to assist in the evaluation of the novel safety features of the future LW-SMRs.
• Improvement of the European nuclear safety analysis codes to demonstrate the capability to assess the safety of the future LW-SMRs

Establishing education and training in the field of innovative nuclear reactors for young professionals is also emphasized.

The ELSMOR project is built upon the expertise of the consortium that consists of technical support organizations, technical research centres, industrial partners, and universities with the long experience in European nuclear safety analysis and the development and implementation of innovative nuclear technologies. The industrial partners include utilities, small medium sized enterprises as well as the consortium currently developing the French LW-SMR (F-SMR design). The developers of European safety analysis tools and other computer codes use their well-established paths for exploitation of the improved and validated simulation tools.

The licencing approaches and methods would be expected to be directly utilized by SMR designers like the French consortium. The outcomes should make the licensing process more fluid and comprehensive; this should also be true from the regulator point of view.

Coordinator

TEKNOLOGIAN TUTKIMUSKESKUS VTT OY
Net EU contribution
€ 457 511,25
Address
TEKNIIKANTIE 21
02150 Espoo
Finland

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Region
Manner-Suomi Helsinki-Uusimaa Helsinki-Uusimaa
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
€ 457 511,25

Participants (14)