Analysis of the national and international framework for the EPZ establishment including harmonization and applicability for next generation reactors

Abstract

Planning zones are the part of nuclear infrastructure that determines the principles of radiation safety, acceptance of the selected technology, as well as sustainability of the installation design. Today, in the Russian Federation, the requirements of regulatory documents on the presence of zones for planning protective measures are mandatory for objects of the 1st and 2nd hazard categories according to national sanitary norms and regulations. Next-generation reactors, including small modular reactors (SMRs), in most cases also require the development of approaches to establish or justify protective action planning zones. In practice, there are no special requirements in terms of protecting the population, so the methods used for VVER-type installations are transferred to such next-generation facilities. In this part, the Russian Federation studies the issue of applying new calculation methods, adapting, and harmonizing the principles of radiation protection, as well as determining reasonable conservatism between the analysis of possible consequences and the means of ensuring the radiation safety of the population in the event of accidental releases. The article considers the current requirements for calculating the size of planning zones based on two different approaches, EUR and IAEA, and their comparative analysis based on some accidents for NPPs with VVER-1000 reactors. The method and technology used for obtaining results can also be applied to next-generation reactors.