Technical Meeting on the On-Site Technical Adaptation of Nuclear Power Plants to Environmental Changes

Background

Nuclear is seen as a key contributor to deliver a net zero world in the context of climate change. At the same time, climate change is recognised to pose risks to nuclear power safety and cost-effectiveness as climate change could challenge existing safety margins and is definitively causing generation losses while exacerbating adverse weather conditions. The bi-annual IAEA conferences on “Nuclear Power and Climate Change” explore and document these aspects but have not considered the practical, technical responses brought in at nuclear power plants to address the risks and to mitigate the impacts to production losses.

Objectives

The purpose of the event is to share approaches and examples of performance-related technical solutions to reduce production losses caused by environmental changes and climate variability before safety and protection measures are triggered, and to identify recommendations to be considered by operators for further adapting their nuclear power plants in that respect.

The detailed objectives of the event are to:

• Present latest experience and lessons learned at operating nuclear power plants to reduce production losses caused by environmental changes and climate variability. The design adaptations made at the design stage are of interest if the technical solutions brought in are of interest for operating plants. Adaptations included in the scope cover the full range of climate and environment hazards, from extreme cold to heat wave, drought to flooding, etc.
• Review, comment and further develop the draft IAEA TECDOC publication on “Adaptation of Operating Nuclear Power Plants to Climate and Environment Variability to Enhance Resilience to Production Losses” produced since the first consultancy meeting was held in November 2023.

Target Audience

Experts from nuclear power plants, operating organisations and, technical support organisations all around the world, in areas such as design changes, Operations, asset management, LTO projects where environmental changes led to technical adaptations at NPPs.

Expected Outputs

• Shared presentation materials on country’s/owner-operators’ case studies as suggested in section ‘Objectives’ above.
• Revised draft IAEA TECDOC publication on “Adaptation of Operating Nuclear Power Plants to Climate and Environment Variability to Enhance Resilience to Production Losses” that considers comments and, includes suggested technical conclusions and, recommendations drawn at the event.