NUGENIA

The Nuclear Generation II & III Alliance (NUGENIA) is dedicated to the R&D of nuclear fission technologies, with a focus on safe and efficient operation of Gen II & III nuclear plants.

Scope of our activities

NUGENIA covers 8 main technical areas:

Technical area 1 – Plant safety and risk assessment

This technical area is devoted to improving the physical understanding and the numerical modelling of the relevant phenomena involved in nuclear power plants (NPPs) incidents and accidents, increasing the capacity and comprehensiveness of plant behaviour and enhancing the accuracy of safety margin assessment accordingly.

Technical area 2 – Severe accidents

The scope of technical area 2 is closely linked to the main public safety goal for nuclear power – to prevent a societal calamity and huge economic loss. With appropriate site risk evaluations, plant designs and management, current Gen II and future Gen III NPPs will show high levels of robustness and low probabilities for severe accidents (SA).

Technical area 3 – Improved nuclear power plant operation

Focuses on improving technical and economical characteristics of reactor operation and minimising radiological impacts on the environment, plant workers and general public during normal reactor operation (covering shutdown, reshuffling & abnormal operational situations, but excluding SA).

Technical area 4 – Integrity assessments of systems, structures & components

Structural assessments are an important part of NPP management programmes. The aspects considered in TA4 include the definition of integrity assessment over the whole life cycle, the various degradation mechanisms, ageing issues, safety margins and harmonisation issues.

Technical area 5 – Waste management and decommissioning

Technical area 5 covers the management of radioactive waste, and the dismantling & decommissioning of nuclear power plants, as well as safety issues. The scope also takes account of emerging lessons from the Fukushima accident and proposes research, development and innovation.

Technical area 6 – Innovative LWR design & technology

Innovation is the key driver of TA 6 to address technologies that aim to support the competitiveness of LWR, including enhanced safety. Current operating nuclear power plants and advanced LWR concepts, such as small modular reactors (SMRs), define the overall R&D programme of TA6.

Technical area 7 – Fuel Elements

Technical Area 7 covers the research on nuclear fuel elements for existing, advanced and innovative core designs including assembly and control rod considerations. It includes the development of new fuel elements, manufacturing, fuel elements use in reactors, assembly instrumentation and pre-disposal management of spent fuel.

Technical area 8 – European Network for Inspection and Qualification (ENIQ)

The European Network for Inspection and Qualification (ENIQ) is a utility driven network working mainly in the areas of qualification of non-destructive testing (NDT) systems and risk-informed in-service inspection (RI-ISI) for nuclear power plants (NPPs). ENIQ has two sub-areas in which the technical work of the TA is performed, the Sub-area for Qualification (SAQ), dealing with the qualification of NDT systems, and the Sub-Area for Inspection Effectiveness (SAE), dealing with RI-ISI.

Governance

NUGENIA is managed by a Coordination Board which gathers at least twice a year the seven technical areas and their deputies.

NUGENIA Chairman

Baptiste PothetHead of international R&D partnerships at Framatome

NUGENIA documents

NUGENIA Vision paper (September 2023)
NUGENIA Vision paper (June 2021)
NUGENIA Vision paper (2015)

Projects

You can find all NUGENIA projects in our SNETP project portfolio.