The Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) and its extension to non-electrical applications, decommissioning and delayed projects information

In the past four decades nuclear power has played a significant role in the generation of electricity: nuclear power currently provides 16% of worldwide electricity production. At the end of 2004 there were 441 operating nuclear reactors worldwide, with a total installed capacity of 367 GW(e), representing more than 10 000 years of accumulated operating experience. Information and data on nuclear power plants worldwide have been collected by the IAEA practically since its establishment. Starting in 1970, operating experience data in addition to basic information and design data have been collected and published in annual reports. In order to facilitate analyses of power plant performance as well as to produce relevant publications, all previously collected data were computerized in 1980, and the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) was put into operation. The IAEA's Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) contains detailed information on nuclear power plants worldwide since their start of commercial operation. It covers a broad range of information, including reactor design characteristics, plant general specifications and operating experience data. PRIS covers the largest amount of worldwide statistical information on operating experience, and although there are other similar databases in existence, it is considered to be the most complete and authoritative source of statistical data on the subject. The IAEA is also currently collecting information on the decommissioning of nuclear power plants, and a project has been started to collect information on delayed plants. Two types of information are held in PRIS: (a) Plant specification data, including information on identification and on basic design characteristics; (b) Plant performance data, including information on production, outages and non-electrical applications. This report gives a complete description of the elements of PRIS. It provides guidance for both data entry and retrieval of information from the system. It describes PRIS application software and publications and gives an overview of the PRIS web site. It is the first IAEA publication to document the entire PRIS system since 1989