Assessing new nuclear power station designs: Generic design assessment of General Nuclear System Limited UK Hualong pressurised water reactor (UK HPR1000)

Results updated 28 Feb 2023

Final decision (updated 7 February)

Thank you for taking part in our consultation. We are grateful to all who took the time to respond or contribute to our consultation events.

Generic design assessment of the UK HPR1000 began in January 2017. We started our technical assessment in November 2017. We completed our initial assessment and published our first report in November 2018. We then carried out our detailed assessment and ran a public consultation. We have now published our final decision.

We asked

We asked for views on our detailed assessment of environmental aspects of the UK HPR1000 new nuclear power station design for 12 weeks between 11 January and 4 April 2021.

Our public consultation was open to everyone including the public, the energy industry, academics with an interest in nuclear power, energy or the environment, NGOs and other public bodies.

Our consultation document set out 6 GDA potential issues and 45 assessment findings.

• A GDA Issue is an unresolved issue that is significant, but resolvable, and which needs resolving before construction of the reactor starts.
• An assessment finding is an unresolved issue that is not considered critical to the decision to start construction - it will need to be addressed during the design, procurement, construction or commissioning phase of any new build project.

We provided detailed explanations of the issues and assessment findings in the document and reports.

You said

The program for this GDA meant that the final decision was not expected until at least 10 months after the end of consultation. To enable all interested parties to see the range of matters raised we published all 52 responses, as received, in July 2021. Link here .

Responses covered the GDA process, GDA scope and the consultation process. Many respondents raised specific technical points related to our preliminary assessment reports. The responses are summarised and addressed in appendix 7 of the decision document. This can be found here. 

A number of responses raised matters outside the scope of GDA and sometimes outside our regulatory remit.

We have explained why we are not considering them in our GDA. Examples include site-specific concerns, government policy or other government facilitative actions, matters associated with planning and matters associated with the development of a geological disposal facility (GDF).

In addition to our consultation we also ask all nuclear power station design companies who enter the GDA process to set up a website and publish information about its design, invite comments and questions about the design, and respond to those comments and questions. Our public comments process closed on 17 September 2021. The company received and responded to 73 comments. We saw the questions and the company’s responses and used them, where relevant, to help inform our assessments. Information about this process has been published and can be found here.  

We did

We carefully considered all the responses we received to our consultation and reflected on the comments made during our engagement events.

Our conclusions are based on:

• the final versions of the GDA submission (submitted October 2021)
• technical discussions held with the reactor design company
• consideration of the responses to our consultation
• consideration of comments submitted to the 'GDA comments process' website and the responses provided by the reactor designer

Our decision is based on our detailed environmental assessment reports. We are publishing updated versions of these alongside our decision document. These cover 8 different topics:

• Management systems
• Strategic radioactive waste management arrangements
• Best available techniques
• Gaseous and aqueous waste
• Solid waste, spent fuel and disposability
• Sampling and monitoring
• The generic site and radiological impact on people and wildlife
• Other environmental regulations

At consultation we highlighted 6 potential GDA Issues. The reactor design company has since submitted the additional information required and these have been closed. There are now no unresolved GDA Issues.

We also identified 45 Assessment Findings. We will expect a future operator to address these at the appropriate stage in the life cycle of the power station.

Subject to the Assessment Findings, the UK HPR1000 design would be acceptable for permitting at any coastal site consistent with the generic site as defined by the reactor designer. The characteristics of this generic site envelop the sites included in the national nuclear policy statement NPS EN-6, but detailed assessments specific for any proposed site would be required as part of application.

We do not believe that any of the Assessment Findings are so fundamental that they are unlikely to be resolved satisfactorily before or during site-specific permitting.

We have also considered whether the additional information received since our consultation has significantly changed the basis of our consultation. We believe that there have been no changes to the design or submissions that would impact on the information presented at consultation.

Our overall conclusion is that we can issue a statement of design acceptability (SoDA) for the UK HPR1000. This is valid only for a site meeting the identified generic site characteristics and subject to any future determination of a site-specific permit application. This statement does not guarantee that any site-specific applications for environmental permits for the UK HPR1000 will be successful.

Read the decision document which includes how we have addressed your responses - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1048627/Generic_design_assessment_of_the_UK_HPR1000_design_-_decision_document.pdf

Read the public summary - Generic design assessment of the UK HPR1000 design - decision document summary - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Read the revised final assessment reports here - GDA decision and SoDA: UK HPR1000 reactor - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Please see our consultation response document for a full summary of your responses on GOV.UK.

Next Steps

Any company that wants to build and operate a new nuclear power station must obtain a number of important site-specific permissions from regulators. If we receive permit applications, we will decide whether permits should be granted and, if so, what conditions should apply. When making decisions about site-specific permit applications, we will take account of the work done during this GDA. We will also carry out further public consultation before deciding whether to issue operational permits for a specific site.

If you have any questions about these documents please contact us by email nuclear@environment-agency.gov.uk

 

Files:

• Stakeholder responses to consultation on Generic Design Assessment of UKHPR1000, 1.0 MB (PDF document)
• Questions and answers given during Generic Design Assessment consultation events, 826.4 KB (PDF document)