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Design Certifications - Licensing Reviews

NRC can certify reactor design for 15 years through the rulemaking process. The NRC review of a design certification application will address the safety issues of an essentially complete nuclear power plant design, independent of a specific site.

On this page:

• Issued Design Certifications
• Application Reviews Currently in Progress
• Pre-Application Reviews
• Related Information

Issued Design Certifications

The staff has issued design certifications (DCs) for four reactor designs that can be referenced in an application for a nuclear power plant, which include:

• ABWR - General Electric (GE) Nuclear Energy's Advanced Boiling Water Reactor design
• Westinghouse's System 80+ design
• Westinghouse's AP600 design (NRC's FSER)
• AP1000 - Westinghouse's AP1000 design

Application Reviews Currently in Progress

The staff is currently reviewing the following DC applications:

• Amended AP1000 - AP1000 Reactor by Westinghouse Electric Company
• ESBWR - Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor by General Electric
• U.S. EPR - U.S. Evolutionary Power Reactor by AREVA Nuclear Power
• US-APWR - U.S. Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.

Pre-Application Reviews

NRC policy encourages early discussions (prior to a license application) between NRC and potential applicants such as utilities and reactor designers to offer licensing guidance and to identify and resolve potential licensing issues early in the licensing process. During this pre-application period for a design certification, the NRC holds public meetings with potential applicants to discuss advanced reactor designs to identify (1) major safety issues that could require Commission policy guidance to the staff, (2) major technical issues that the staff could resolve under existing regulations or NRC policy, and (3) the research needed to resolve identified issues. See the following preapplication review pages for specific information.

• ACR-700 - Advanced CANDU Reactor by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
• IRIS - International Reactor Innovative and Secure by Westinghouse Electric Company
• PBMR - Pebble Bed Modular Reactor

Related Information

The NRC’s current regulations have been developed over the past 40 years and reflect the experience gained from many years of light water reactor (LWR) design and operation. To facilitate the licensing of new reactor designs substantially different than the current generation LWRs, the NRC is seeking to resolve key safety and licensing issues. See our Policy Issues Associated with Licensing Non-LWR Designs page for related documents and other information including, Commission documents, meeting summaries, and policy statements.

Anticipatory and confirmatory research has been conducted by the Office of Research in support of the design certification reviews.  See our Advanced Reactor Research page for additional information including the 9 key research areas.

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Friday, May 02, 2008