Criteria for IEC Standards

Gary JohnsonChairman SC45Akg6un@mac.com

IEC Standards must be useable in all SC45A Member States

• Argentina• Belgium• Canada• China• Czech Republic• Egypt• Finland• France• Italy• Japan• Korea

• Netherlands• Norway• Pakistan• Romania• Russia• South Africa• Spain• Sweden• Ukraine• UK• US

To make standards useful in all of these states standards must:

• Be technically acceptable to the Member States• Be NPP technology neutral– Or explicitly restricted to specific type of plant or plants

• Fit the regulatory environment of all Member States• Use normative references that are accepted by all

Member States• Use terminology that has been accepted by

Member States and that is consistently applied across the set of standards.

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IEC standards must be technically acceptable to the Member States

• Technical agreement is reached through the working groups.

• Technical agreement is formally endorsed by the vote of National Committees

IEC standards should be plant technology neutral*

• PWR– Framatome PWR– CPR-1000– CNP-600– EPR– VVER-1000– VVER-440– Westinghouse PWR– Mitsubishi PWR– CNP-300– CE PWR– OPR-1000– APR-1400– AP-1000– Siemens PWR– KWU-PWR– B&W PWR

• BWR– GE BWR– Toshiba BWR– Hitachi BWR– ABWR– Asea-Atom BWR– KWU BWR

• LMR– BN-600

• Gas reactor– AGR

• PHWR• CANDU• Siemens PHWR

*or explicitly state the plant technologies to which they apply

• I&C Technology– “Analog”– Computer-Based– FPGA Based

Much variation within these categories

Achieving technology neutral standards

• Working groups typically include members who are familiar with most of these designs

• Formal review by National Committees is expected to consider how the standards apply to the designs used in their country

• Scope of a standard may be limited to one or a few technologies

IEC standards must fit the regulatory environment of all member states

• There are many different regulatory environments, for example:– US

• Specific regulations and extensive guidance

– UK• General regulations and high level review guidance

– France• General regulations and TSO technical review

– Russia• Specific regulations but no published review guidance

– Ukraine• Regulations based upon Russian model, I&C requirements based upon

IAEA NS-G-1.3We need a reference set of regulatory principles, but 1) the principles of a singleRegulator won’t work and 2) it is impossible to merge the requirements of all regulators

Only IAEA requirements documents been endorsed by all member states

• For NPP I&C the most significant IAEA requirements are– SSR 2/1, Safety of Nuclear Power Plants: Design– NS-R-3, Safety of Nuclear Power Plants: Operation– GS-R-3, The Management System for Facilities and

Operations• Management systems include the definition and

implementation of quality assurance activities

• NS-G-1.3 plays the role of IEEE 603– Different scopes (important to safety vs safety)

Achieving consistency between IAEA and Member State regulatory environment

• Ensuring consistency with Member State practices is the job of three review groups– Nuclear Safety Standards Committee (NUSSC)

• http://www-ns.iaea.org/committees/default.asp?s=5&l=37

– Committee on Safety Standards (CSS)• Same as above

– IAEA Board of Governors • http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/Board/

• WENRA Safety Reference Levels are based upon the IAEA Safety Requirements.– WENRA is cited in the European Directive on Nuclear Safety and

Waste• http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:172:0018:0022:EN:PDF

IEC standards use normative references that are accepted by all Member States

• Three sets of standard document are accepted by all member states– IEC– ISO– IAEA

IEC standards use terminology that is commonly understood by all Member States

• IAEA, IEC, and ISO have terminology that has been accepted by all member states– IAEA Safety Glossary

• http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1290_web.pdf

– SC45A Safety Glossary• http://std.iec.ch/terms/terms.nsf/ByTC?OpenView&Count=-1&RestrictToCategory=45A

– IEC International Electrotechncal Vocabulary• http://www.electropedia.org/IEC Glossary of Terms

– ISO Concept Database• http://www.iso.org/obp/ui/

Achieving a consistent use of terminology

• SC45A takes the IAEA Safety Glossary as the authority for nuclear safety terms– In exceptional cases SC45A may adapt the IAEA definition, and

recommend changes to IAEA• Existing definitions in the SC45A glossary are used to

ensure consistency• SC45A takes the IEV and the ISO concept database as

sources of terminology that are not nuclear I&C specific– Avoid new definitions where possible

• Draft standards are reviewed against this policy.