The target date for licensing  the design for the Moorside new nuclear plant has been delayed a second time, to March 2017, and the schedule “remains challenging”, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) said in a regular licensing update. The UK’s nuclear regulator is carrying out a detailed examination of progress this month.

In its previous quarterly update the regulator complained of delays and poor quality in information provided by Westinghouse, which designed and will build the AP1000 reactor at Moorside in Cumbria. The ONR says that “changes that have been made by Westinghouse to its UK team and approach to GDA, and the exposure to senior executives of programme and technical issues seems to have helped recover its position to some extent”. However, the programme summary lists a dozen areas where work is behind schedule or the information provided is inadequate.

The ONR said that despite an overall improvement in the Westinghouse approach to GDA closure, following executive level intervention it was still concerned about the volume of work to be delivered. It will conduct a detailed ‘health check’ this month to assess its  level of confidence in the revised programme.

See more

Nuclear regulator complains of delays and quality concerns

Subscribe to New Power for full analysis, comment, interviews and data in our monthly report, and access to our database, and sign up to our FREE e-newsletter for website updates

Not a subscriber? To see if you qualify for our next FREE TRIAL send your name, job title, and telephone number to [email protected]