The designs from AECL, Areva, GE-Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse are eligible for the first stage of the pre-licensing process which will be taken forward by the Joint Programme Office (JPO) comprising of the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS), the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) and the Environment Agency (EA).
If successful in phase one, which includes an assessment of the safety case for each reactor design, a design may be able to progress to phase two of the generic design assessment, where the designs will be assessed in more detail. Phase two is subject to the outcome of the nuclear consultation.
It is likely that the number of designs to be considered during phase two will be reduced from four to three due to resource constraints of the regulators.
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