Engineering news
Westinghouse and UK regulators have begun the closeout phase of the Generic Design Assessment for the AP1000 nuclear power plant.
The announcement is a positive step forward for NuGen’s Moorside project, which aims to deliver three AP1000 reactors on land to the North and West of Sellafield site. The target date for completion of the design assessment on the AP1000 reactor for use in the UK, is January 2017. The first Moorside unit scheduled to come online in 2024.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency (EA) granted interim GDA approval of Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor design in December 2011. The GDA process was paused at that stage, pending the selection of the AP1000 plant technology for a project in the UK. That selection occurred last year when UK nuclear developer NuGen announced its plans to build AP1000 units on the West Cumbrian coast.
Jeff Benjamin, Westinghouse senior vice-president of New Plants and Major Projects, said: “We’ve cleared an important hurdle in our efforts to bring a new generation of safe, clean, reliable electricity to serve the UK’s energy needs.
“We look forward to successfully completing the GDA review and moving ahead with the Moorside project.”
In the next stage in the GDA process, Westinghouse will provide regulators with detailed technical information to address the remaining open issues in their assessment of the AP1000 plant design. Successful resolution of the open items will result in the granting of a Design Acceptance Confirmation and Statement of Design Acceptability.
A NuGen spokesman said: “This notification that the regulators and Westinghouse are taking forward design assessment on the AP1000 to close-out, on a timescale in keeping with NuGen’s Moorside project delivery, is important news for us, and for the UK as a whole.
“The Moorside project in West Cumbria could be transformational for the region in terms of jobs and economic benefits, and of huge significance to the future of the UK in terms of the secure supply of low-carbon for future generations.”
The project is another sign of progress in the growth of the global AP1000 plant fleet. In addition to the eight units being built in the US and China, a shareholder agreement was signed in 2014 to develop an AP1000 plant at the Kozloduy site in Bulgaria.