A study report on the identification and evaluation of possible regulatory challenges towards licensing and regulation of small modular reactors in India

Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) framework for licensing as well as regulation of nuclear power plants (NPP) is developed comprehensively for water cooled reactor based NPPs and to a large extent is also technologically neutral which allows its implementation towards licensing as well as regulation of different types of nuclear reactor technologies. With the advent of new age small and modular power reactors (SMR) and the advancement in their licensing globally, a need has arisen to map the current AERB regulatory framework and practices to SMRs which are currently under advance stages of deployment/ licensing/ design globally, so as to identify major regulatory challenges that SMRs might present during their licensing as well as further regulation.