Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency Received Applications for SMRs

Two applications have been submitted to Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency (Państwowa Agencja Atomistyki, PAA) for the assessment of Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology.

The National Atomic Energy Agency (PAA) said Orlen Synthos Green Energy and KGHM had both submitted application documents on 8 July. Orlen’s submission is for GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s (GEH) BWRX-300 small modular reactor technology and KGHM’s is for NuScale’s Voygr SMR power plant.

The applications are for a ‘general opinion’ on the planned organisational and technical solutions used in the respective reactors.

PAA said a general opinion is aimed at determining whether “the planned organisational and technical solutions comply with the requirements of nuclear safety and radiological protection resulting from the provisions of the law, or whether the investor should make appropriate modifications”.

The PAA president has six months to issue an opinion on this matter. However, the regulator noted that this could be extended to nine months in “particularly complex cases”.

In 2021 PKN Orlen and Synthos Green Energy set up Orlen Synthos Green Energy, a joint venture to prepare and commercialise SMR technology, particularly the BWRX-300 reactors, in Poland. Already in 2019 GEH and Synthos announced an agreement to collaborate on potential deployment applications for the BWRX-300 SMR in Poland.

In February this year, KGHM signed a definitive agreement with NuScale to initiate work towards deploying a first NuScale VOYGR SMR power plant in Poland as early as 2029.

Read the full story on World Nuclear News.