The cooling water supply structures form part of the safety-related structures of nuclear power plants, as they still have to ablate residual heat even when a station is not in operation or experiencing any incidents.

The cooling water intake structures, usually right on the bank of a river or on the coastline, in particular, are subject to high requirements in terms of protecting property and being designed to withstand external actions. Being designed to cope with explosions internally, or external aircraft impact, leads to large buildings with extremely thick walls. Alternatively, if they are not so designed, there are discussions as to whether an adequate flow of water can still be guaranteed in the event of a partial collapse (after an aircraft impact, for example). In more recent plants, this has led such buildings to be arranged redundantly, spaced at minimum distances apart, so that they do not need to be designed to withstand an aircraft impact.