Rosatom CEO: Russia needs regulatory changes for small nuclear power plant leadership

MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/. Maintaining Russia's leadership in small nuclear power plants in the global market requires a change in the rules and regulations for the nuclear energy industry, said Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev.

"Today, LPPP (low-power nuclear power plants - TASS) is a new mainstream for decades to come. But the introduction of this technology is fraught with regulatory difficulties - for the supervisory authorities, these are fundamentally new facilities, which they treat cautiously and very conservatively. As for Russia, if we want to continue to win the competition in the nuclear energy market, now in small and medium capacity, we also need to take a fresh look at licensing approaches for such installations. This is a task of national importance," he said in an article he contributed to the publication Strana Rosatom.

Likhachev said that excessive conservatism in the world is waning and the successes of the US nuclear industry are not only the merit of developers and manufacturers, but also of the national regulator, which is meeting the companies halfway. As for Russia, the Rosatom CEO hopes that the transformation of nuclear energy norms and rules will continue and will help accelerate the LPPP projects while unconditionally complying with the safety requirements of such facilities.