Accelerating Advanced Nuclear Deployment: Meeting the Supply Chain Challenge

Solutions for developing the supply chain to quickly deploy advanced nuclear technologies were under discussion at a key meeting this week.

Accelerating the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors is widely viewed as key to achieving climate goals and ensuring energy security, but getting there will require overcoming a series of supply chain challenges, which was the topic of a meeting co-hosted by the IAEA and the Brussels-based trade association nucleareurope in Vienna.

"Robust supply chain development is high on the list of priorities, both in countries expanding their existing nuclear programmes as well as in the approximately 30 newcomer countries," said Aline des Cloizeaux, Director of the IAEA's Division of Nuclear Power. "The IAEA is playing a central role by bringing all important contributors, including operators, nuclear suppliers, regulators, standards development organizations, inspection organizations and international organizations to the table."

More than 100 experts from 31 countries and several international organizations gathered at the IAEA's Vienna headquarters to discuss strategies for streamlining the production and delivery of nuclear power plants and their components. How to facilitate the deployment of small nuclear reactors (SMRs) was a key topic, and participants suggested possible solutions to regulatory hurdles, acceptance of different standards and ways to improve manufacturing efficiency and the supplier base and to boost international collaboration.

"This 18th edition of the nucleareurope-IAEA joint event on management showcases the benefits of this long-lasting cooperation," said Yves Desbazeille, Director General of nucleareurope. "The event allowed for fruitful discussions between relevant stakeholders on key topics such as nuclear new build and the nuclear supply chain."

The meeting also featured case studies detailing best practices for managing the nuclear supply chain and discussions on technical inspection organizations, international challenges and initiatives to foster new build project sustainability.

In 2022, the IAEA launched the Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative (NHSI) to facilitate the deployment of SMRs and other advanced reactors by harmonizing regulatory approaches (through its Regulatory Track) and standardizing industrial approaches (through its Industry Track) across jurisdictions.

"It is exciting to see the discussions changing from 'what needs to be done' to 'what is being done' to develop a sustainable nuclear supply chain, including what lessons have already been learned," said Marc Tannenbaum, Principal Technical Executive at the Electric Power Research Institute. "It is clear that the NHSI initiatives such as enabling use of serially manufactured commercial/industrial grade items will play an essential role in both expanding the capacity of the nuclear supply chain and facilitating long term equipment reliability and operation of SMRs and other advanced reactors."

The Industry Track 's Topical Group 2 on common approaches on codes and standards, released the latest in a series of NHSI working papers earlier this month. It describes the importance of adopting a consistent approach to nuclear codes and standards for serial SMR deployments and laid out what the group is doing to help address challenges in this area. The group has, for example, performed a comparative analysis of mechanical engineering codes and standards across several jurisdictions, identifying commonalities as well as key differences, and plans to add civil codes and standards to their scope of work.

"The World Nuclear Association has led on understanding differences and equivalencies in nuclear codes and standards in contribution to the group. This is part of the Association's wider work on the essential streamlining of nuclear regulation and design required to accelerate the deployment of new nuclear," said Sama Bilbao y Leon, the Association's Director General. "If the global nuclear industry and indeed the world are to reach the goal of tripling nuclear capacity by 2050, then it will require a stronger and more internationally harmonized supply chain that will serially manufacture components for standardized nuclear power plants worldwide."

The meeting participants concluded that early engagement of suppliers, such as by establishing strategic long-term agreements and partnerships, is essential, and that commercially available items should be used through a rigorous acceptance mechanism wherever possible to expand the supplier base. They also agreed that drawing on standardization practices used in other industries, such as aviation, can be highly beneficial as the nuclear power industry looks to adopt similar approaches.

Next steps for NHSI

The third plenary meeting of the Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative, which was held in Vienna in October just ahead of the Agency's first ever International Conference on Small Modular Reactors and their Applications, took a look at what the initiative has achieved thus far. NHSI is now moving forward with a programme of work to implement many of the recommendations from its working groups and to examine a range of technology-specific user requirements to enhance industrial and regulatory alignment.