IAEA hosts technical meeting on topical issues of nuclear power infrastructure development

The IAEA Technical Working Group on Nuclear Infrastructure Development held a Technical Meeting on current Issues in nuclear power infrastructure development in Vienna on March 14-17, 2023. The event was aimed at providing a forum for high-level officials and executives of nuclear power program implementers, regulatory authorities, and NPP owner/operator organizations to meet and discuss nuclear infrastructure development issues.

The event was attended by IAEA experts as well as representatives of member states (Armenia, Bangladesh, Republic of Belarus, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Russian Federation, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, USA, Uzbekistan, and others).

As part of the meeting, the speakers presented reports on the status of nuclear power infrastructure and project(s) in countries embarking on a nuclear power program, touching upon various infrastructure issues, including the legal and regulatory framework, management, radioactive waste and spent fuel management, and environmental protection, etc. The speakers shared experiences, lessons learned, opportunities, and challenges they have encountered when conducting nuclear infrastructure development activities for the national nuclear power program.

In the context of the growing interest of countries in nuclear power, the participants discussed the initiative of IAEA Director General R. Grossi to harmonize and standardize the approaches to the use of atomic energy in relation to small modular reactors. The experts outlined the objectives of scaling up activities to promote the development of nuclear infrastructure in newcomer countries.

Julia Chernyakhovskaya, Deputy Director General on Nuclear Infrastructure of Rusatom Service JSC, made a presentation on “Nuclear Infrastructure and deployment model of an international nuclear facility project: vendor's perspective”. She spoke about the nuclear infrastructure development model for large and small capacity NPP projects, for an optimized floating power unit, its key elements and development stages. The speaker emphasized: "Regardless of the model and project chosen, the support of a nuclear infrastructure technology vendor optimizes the nuclear infrastructure (NI) burden on the partner country and promotes accelerated NI development.

The NI development model, based on a mechanism of soft coordination with the regulatory authority, allows the national nuclear development program to be managed with a clear division of responsibility and tied to the country's peaceful nuclear project schedule.”