European utility requirements: actions in progress and next steps

The major European electricity producers want to keep the nuclear option open, that is to be able to build new nuclear power plants when their economic interest or necessity requests it. Producing a common European Utility Requirement (EUR) document that sets out the requested design targets is one of the basic tasks for this renewal. Since late '91, the major European electricity producers have been writing a common set of requirements that provides clear guidance to the designers. Meanwhile the main LWR vendors have developed advanced designs for the European market, with reference to the EUR document. An action plan has been adopted by the EUR utilities to continue the development of the EUR document till 2005. It is based upon 3 main ideas: further revisions of the volumes 1, 2 and 4 are necessary that will bring the responses of the electricity producers to Europe's integration: competitive and unified electricity market in view, electricity producers' stakes different from the other electricity business actors', common rules ahead (safety, HV grid, ....), newcomers. volume 3 must be kept a picture of reality by updating the existing subsets and drafting new subsets. coordination with the non-EUR actors will help harmonising the key requirements at a global level. (author)