When licensing a nuclear power plant, some general safety considerations as well as detailed requirements have to be taken into account. Some of the most relevant general considerations are:

• The plant and the site on which it will be built are closely related and have a mutual interaction. There should not be any unacceptable adverse impact from plant operation on the site and, similarly, no unacceptable adverse impacts from site characteristics on the safety of the plant.

• There is assurance of control of reactivity, reactor core cooling and containment of radioactivity; these three basic safety functions have to be achieved at all times, under all design basis conditions including design basis accidents. For beyond design basis accident conditions, it should also be possible to control the progression of an accident and mitigate its consequences.

• There is a close relationship between the safety of the NPP and the persons operating it, i. e., the human-machine interface. It is therefore important that the plant is operated by well-trained and qualified per­sonnel to ensure that the plant operating configuration and its process parameters are kept within the safety envelope and license conditions prescribed by the RB.

• Security measures and emergency preparedness plans should be in place and tested satisfactorily before nuclear fuel is loaded in the core.

Various other licensing requirements should be clearly prescribed by the RB for each one of the phases in the life of the plant. When a license is given in sequential steps, each step normally includes an explanation of the basic requirements for the following step. Some of these requirements include the following:

• The regulatory process for the various stages of licensing of the NPP should be clearly laid down by the RB in a formal manner that should include a list of technical documents to be submitted by the applicant, the lead time for their submission, the list of safety requirements and standards to comply with, and the methodology for their detailed review within the RB.

• The Site Evaluation Report (SER), the Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR) and the Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) are the primary documents submitted by the applicant to the RB in support of the site, construction and operating license applications, respectively. These reports and their supporting technical documents should meet the RB’s specifications and should be of a high quality and in sufficient detail.

• The RB should carry out inspections during manufacture of safety — related components to confirm that they meet the prescribed standards. Likewise, the RB will conduct periodic inspections of the NPP during its construction phase to ensure that the construction of the safety — related systems, structures and components (SSC) meets the safety and quality standards.

• On completion of construction, management of the NPP is transferred from a construction group to a commissioning and operations group. The licensee submits an application to the RB for authorization of commissioning activities, according to a well-defined sequence and detailed procedures for all activities. After a satisfactory review, the RB authorizes commissioning. Initial fuel loading in the reactor core marks the start of operations and hence needs authorization from the RB. At this stage, a complete operational discipline must be in force with a full complement of trained and authorized operational personnel in position, along with security and emergency plans satisfac­torily tested and in place. Subsequently, the RB authorizes the raising of the reactor power in predefined steps, each step being reviewed as appropriate.

• During the operational phase of the NPP, the RB reviews periodic operational reports, accounts on safety-related incidents and ageing status of the SSCs to confirm that the NPP continues to successfully meet the applicable license conditions and current safety standards.

• At the end of its operating life, the NPP is decommissioned, though only after the RB issues a license for this purpose after a review of the decommissioning plan.