Proactive Investors - Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LON:RR) shares buzzed higher after the UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) passed the company's so-called small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) on to the next stage of the regulatory approval process.
The ONR said the Rolls SMR design, which is bigger than most SMRs at 470 megawatts versus 300 MW, successfully completed the fundamental assessment, step two of the generic design assessment (GDA) process, with the company’s programme timescales.
Working with the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales, the ONR examined whether the design's safety, security, safeguards and environment cases, and the suitability of the methodologies, approaches, codes, standards and philosophies generic are adequate for the reactors to be commissioned.
Next, will be the third step of the process, before examining potential site-specific proposals.
The Rolls-Royce SMR GDA began in April 2022 and today the regulators granted the step 2 GDA statements for the first time since new updated design assessments were introduced, as well as marking the start of Step 3 of the GDA for the first time.
Rob Exley, ONR's head of generic design assessment, said: "We are the first regulators to assess this reactor design, determining whether it meets our robust safety, security, safeguards and environmental protection standards in Great Britain."
He step 3 will be about "assessing in more detail the evidence that supports the claims made about the design in the Step 2 submissions".
Saffron Price-Finnerty, the Environment Agency’s new reactors programme manager, said her team of specialist assessors have assessed hundreds of submissions and documents provided by Rolls-Royce and attended numerous technical meetings with the company.
"We have not currently identified any significant issues or concerns with the design and Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd has been able to demonstrate that environmental protection and radioactive waste management are key areas of focus for its developing design.
"We’re pleased that Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd has made significant progress in considering sustainability when developing its organisation and design."
She said "there is still a significant amount of work to do", with the next stage including consultations with the public and stakeholders on the preliminary view of the acceptability of the design.
The ONR can issue a design acceptance confirmation (DAC) and the EA a statement of design acceptability (SoDA) only at the end of step 3 of the GDA if the design meets required safety, security, safeguards, environmental protection and waste management standards.
Even then, this does not guarantee the granting of a site licence or subsequent permissions issued under the conditions of a site licence or environmental permits for the construction of a power station based on the Rolls-Royce SMR design.