Consolidating the European Utility Requirement document

The major European electricity producers are developing the European Utility Requirement document for future LWR plants. The aim is to establish design requirements acceptable by the owners, the public and the licensing authorities of their countries. Thus the designers can develop standard LWR designs that can be licensed in all European countries and the utilities can open their consultations to more vendors on a common specification. The EUR organisation started with five partners in 1992. It now includes eleven utilities. The EUR document is well recognised as the reference for the LWR plants to be built in Western Europe and it has been reviewed by the safety authorities. The main vendors are developing advanced LWR designs for the European market, with reference to this document. The EUR utilities are producing a volume 3 to the EUR document that specifically addresses these new designs. Other works are also in progress by the EUR organisation to broaden the scope, to improve, to clarify and to stabilise the existing texts. All these works pave the way to a new revision of the whole EUR document, the release of which is now planned within two years. (author)