EASI-SMR Project

DESCRIPTION of the  Project

The energy transition and industries decarbonation drived in Europe by The European Green Deal, Fit for 55 policy package, and REPowerEU offer huge potential market opportunities that attract many players outside and inside the European Union who are active in bringing SMRs technologies to reality in Europe.

 

In that context, the European SMR pre-Partnership worked in 2022-2023 on different workstreams, including an R&D&I program consistent with the European market needs and the licensing requirements. The aim was to ensure the implementation of the highest nuclear safety standards in Europe and secure a best-in-class position for European industry and R&D organizations within the international competition. This European initiative has now become the European Industrial Alliance on SMRs.

 

The EASI-SMR work program is largely inspired by the European SMR pre-Partnership R&D roadmap, with a particular focus on passive systems. The four-year project will address the safety issues associated with major LW-SMR innovations:

  • Passive safety systems
  • Soluble boron-free cores
  • Co-generation and hybridization
  • Additive manufacturing to improve the compactness of modularization of Nuclear Steam Supply System internals
  • Multi-unit operation

 

The work aims to provide insights and facilitate licensing for European LW-SMR industrial projects.

 

Objectives

Ensure the highest level of the safety of LW SMRs based on passive systems

The safety assessment of passive systems relies on calculations codes that must be qualified with a strong experimental basis.
An important experimental program using 9 test facilities in Europe will be performed to investigate key physical phenomena in passive safety systems under both design basis and beyond design basis conditions, providing essential insights for LW-SMR safety demonstration.
The capability of European-developed Thermohydraulic codes to simulate DBA and BDBA scenarios will be assessed for the different experimental tests, alongside the identification of best practices for passive system modeling and areas for code development.
Finally, these assessed codes will be used to adapt the reliability assessment methodologies (probabilistic and deterministic) for passive systems, focusing on risk analysis and licensing readiness.

 

Assess the safety impact of LW-SMRs designs’ specificities

The EASI-SMR project will study the impact of various LW-SMR design innovations on reactor safety.
The multi-unit operation of certain designs, as well as compactness and modularization constraints, may have an impact on human and organization factors (control room, supply-chain, maintenance, cyber security), and will be studied analytically and by simulator tests.
The L-PBF and DED-LB additive manufacturing methodologies will be studied by building and characterizing mock-ups.
Finally, high fidelity Monte Carlo simulation of static and depleted boron free cores will be performed to validate industry-like tools for licensing safety studies.

 

Address regulatory and societal challenges towards the deployment of SMRs in Europe

The project will facilitate licensing and improve the acceptability of LW-SMR by working on providing guideline on harmonized licencing, ensuring waste management system compatibility with large LW reactors, creating manuals for stakeholder engagement, clarifying the co-location problematic and EPZ, integrating LW-SMRs in the Hybrid energy systems and performing safety and security analysis on Ukrainian war.

 

Learn more: https://easi-smr.eu/

PUBLICATIONS related to the EASI-SMR project:

Coming soon…

PUBLIC DELIVERABLES:

Coming soon…

PARTNERS

N° Participant organization name Short name Country
1 ELECTRICITE DE FRANCE EDF FR
2 ASOCIACION DE INVESTIGACION METALURGICA DEL NOROESTE AIMEN ES
3 ANSALDO NUCLEARE SPA ANN IT
4 BEL V BEL V BE
5 COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES CEA FR
6 CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIONES ENERGETICAS MEDIOAMBIENTALES Y TECNOLC CIEMAT ES
7 Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Ricerca Tecnologica Nucleare CIRTEN IT
8 POLITECNICO DI MILANO POLIMI IT
9 UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA UNIROMA1 IT
10 UNIVERSITA DI PISA UNIPI IT
11 CENTRALNE LABORATORIUM OCHRONY RADIOLOGICZNEJ CLOR PL
12 AGENZIA NAZIONALE PER LE NUOVE TECNOLOGIE – L’ENERGIA E LO SVILUPPC ENEA IT
13 EUROPEAN NUCLEAR EDUCATION NETWORK ENEN BE
14 LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ENERGORISK LLC ENERGORISK UA
15 FRAMATOME FRAMATOME FR
16 FRAMATOME GMBH FRAMATOME GMBH DE
17 GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANLAGEN UND REAKTORSICHERHEIT (GRS) gGmbH GRS gGmbH DE
18 HELMHOLTZ-ZENTRUM DRESDEN-ROSSENDORF EV HZDR DE
19 INSTITUT DE RADIOPROTECTION ET DE SURETE NUCLEAIRE IRSN FR
20 JRC -JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE- EUROPEAN COMMISSION JRC BE
21 INSTITUT JOZEF STEFAN JSI SI
22 KARLSRUHER INSTITUT FUER TECHNOLOGIE KIT DE
23 LIETUVOS ENERGETIKOS INSTITUTAS LEI LT
24 LAPPEENRANNAN-LAHDEN TEKNILLINEN YLIOPISTO LUT LUT University FI
25 STICHTING NRG PALLAS NRG NL
26 NUCLEAR RESEARCH AND CONSULTANCY GROUP NRG NL
27 RUHR-UNIVERSITAET BOCHUM RUB DE
28 SOCIETA INFORMAZIONI ESPERIENZE TERMOIDRAULICHE SPA ENUNCIABILE AN SIET IT
29 STATE ENTERPRISE “STATE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL CENTER FOR NUCLEA SSTC NRS UA
30 SWERIM AB Swerim AB SE
31 TRACTEBEL ENGINEERING S.A. TRACTEBEL BE
32 UJV REZ AS UJV REZ AS CZ
33 TEKNOLOGIAN TUTKIMUSKESKUS VTT OY VTT FI
34 LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ANALYTICAL RESEARCH BUREAU FOR NPP SAFET ARB UA
35 FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM JULICH GMBH FZJ DE
36 KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN KTH SE
37 NINE NUCLEAR AND INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING SRL NINE S.R.L. IT
38 NARODOWE CENTRUM BADAN JADROWYCH NCBJ PL

“Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them.”

Related Projects