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UK European Pressurised Reactor™ (UK EPR)

EPR 200 reactor design computer design

Designer (requesting party): EDF/Areva

Current position: Assessment of reactor design complete and nuclear site licence granted in 2012 to install and operate two EPRs at Hinkley Point C in Somerset.

Timeline: Apr-Sep 2007 - Step 1 (preparatory step) Sep 2007 - Jun 2008 - Step 2 (initial assessment) Jun 2008 - Dec 2009 - Step 3 (detailed assessment) Jan 2010 - Dec 2011 - Step 4 (detailed design, safety case and security evidence assessment) Dec 2011 - Dec 2012 Closure of GDA

Progress reports

At the end of each step of the assessment, the regulators publish detailed technical reports and a summary report.

Find out more about progress reports.

Regulatory issues and resolution plans

A regulatory issue is a serious regulatory shortfall identified by the regulators. The issues are potentially significant enough to prevent provision of design acceptance. There are two regulatory issues published for the EPR.

Regulatory Issue title RI ref.
Information required by the Environment Agency for the detailed assessment stage RI-UKEPR-0001 
Control and Instrumentation (C&I) Architecture RI-UKEPR-0002 
Regulatory observations and resolution plans

When we designed GDA in 2006/7, we set unprecedented levels of openness by asking the Requesting Parties to publish their safety cases, and we, the regulators (ONR & EA) published all our GDA assessment reports. Publishing documents demands additional resource as they have to be checked to ensure they contain no commercially confidential or security sensitive information. When we began GDA in 2007 we judged that the publication of Regulatory Observations (ROs) was not appropriate or necessary.

However, whilst we viewed the openness of GDA of the UK EPR and AP1000 as a success, there is always scope for improvement. Therefore ,during our review of lessons learned from the GDA of the UKEPR and AP1000 designs, we identified anumer of areas for improvement; one of which, was to extend the scope of publication throughout GDA to include all the Regulatory Observations (ROs) and associated Requesting Party resolution plans. This is the approach we are now undertakingfor GDA of the UK ABWR.

Design acceptance

In December 2012, ONR and the Environment Agency granted design acceptance to the EPR design.

Find out more about design acceptance.

Office for Nuclear Regulation Environment Agency Natural Resources Wales