Wednesday, 26 March 2025
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In December 2021, the Netherlands’ new coalition government placed nuclear power at the heart of its climate and energy policy. Based on preliminary plans, two new reactors will be completed around 2035 and each will have a capacity of 1000-1650 MWe. The two reactors would provide 9-13% of the country’s electricity production in 2035. The cabinet announced in December 2022 that it currently sees Borssele as the most suitable location for the construction of the new reactors.
EDF of France, KHNP of South Korea and Westinghouse of the USA were contracted by the Ministry of Climate and Green Growth (KGG) to conduct feasibility studies into the construction of their respective reactors – the EPR, APR-1400 and AP1000 – in the Netherlands.
The studies were to consider whether their designs comply with Dutch legislation and regulations, whether they can be fitted into the preferred location at Borssele, and to develop a more detailed estimate of the costs and time required to build the two new units. The possible impact on the environment was also highlighted in the studies. In November, Amentum of the USA was selected to review and advise on the studies submitted by the three potential reactor vendors.
The country’s Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ANVS) has now released its conclusions of the review of the studies. It notes that it reviewed the APR-1400 design before KHNP said it would withdraw. ANVS said that, “when it comes to safety”, it is feasible any of the three designs could be built in the Netherlands.
“These companies have tested their designs against our guidelines for Safe Design and Safe Operation of Nuclear Power Plants (VOBK),” ANVS said. “In doing so, they have identified a number of points where their design deviates from the literal text of the VOBK and have provided substantiation that the underlying safety objectives are being achieved.”
The ANVS uses the VOBK as a reference framework for the design assessment in the run-up to the licensing procedure. “Following recommendations from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the recent evaluation of the Nuclear Energy Act and the results of this self-evaluation, the ANVS has decided to revise the VOBK to better align it with the international state-of-the-art, to harmonise it more internationally and to make it less technology-dependent,” it said.
Findings on each design
ANVS notes that Westinghouse’s AP1000 relies heavily on the use of passive systems for safety management. “In a possible licensing procedure, it must still be proven in detail that the passive systems and principles are also sufficiently reliable in practice to guarantee safety in all accident scenarios,” it said. “This will be an extensive point of attention for the ANVS during the design assessment.” In addition, it says the safety file of the AP1000 is largely based on compliance with prescriptive US standards, while in the Netherlands, targeted legal standards apply. “This system requires the applicant to demonstrate in detail that these objectives are achieved with the design. This entails a risk of a longer lead time because the applicant will have to rewrite the safety documentation extensively. In addition, there are risks for the licensing because in the American frameworks, different choices are sometimes made than in the IAEA framework or EU context.”
Regarding EDF’s EPR, ANVS notes that the design has been based on Western European norms and standards from the start of the design phase. “The many (safety) systems make the design robust but also complex,” it said. “This poses challenges for both the permitting and (supervision of) the construction in terms of the amount of work and maintaining a good overview.” However, it said that as the reactor is already in operation or under construction in Finland, France and the UK, it “has the advantage that the ANVS will be able to rely as much as possible on European colleague authorities when assessing the design”. It notes that EDF is now focused on developing the EPR2 design, so EDF “must ensure that this does not detract from the quality of the design that is offered to the Netherlands”.
Although KHNP has now withdrawn its APR-1400 design, ANVS said the design “appears to meet the expectations that (Western) European countries, including the Netherlands, have for nuclear power plants”. It added that KHNP’s intention to rely heavily on the supply of components from South Korea “entails challenges with regard to the on-site quality assurance assessment and supervision by the ANVS during manufacturing”.
ANVS concludes: “Based on the self-evaluations as carried out by the designers, the ANVS sees no reason to assume that one of these designs could not be licensed in the Netherlands. As far as safety is concerned, there is therefore no reason to exclude a design from participation in the tender or to require adjustments to the standard design in the context of this process.”
The regulator said the Ministry of Climate and Green Growth “can use this information for the tender to ultimately come to the choice of a company that can start building in the Netherlands.
“Naturally, before a permit is granted, ANVS will very carefully assess whether the design complies with Dutch legislation and regulations, whereby the applicant will have to provide much more information about the design and the safety analyses than is currently available in the self-assessments,” ANVS said. “Only once the location is known will it be possible to consider the location-specific safety aspects that play a role at that location.”
