Regulatory Considerations in Long-lead Items for Nuclear Reactor Facilities

The term “long-lead items”, as a concept, refers to equipment, products and systems that are identified at the earliest stage of a project to have a delivery time long enough to affect directly the overall lead time of a project. Long-lead items are found in most industries. These items, in order to avoid negatively affecting the project timeline, may need to be sourced and manufactured years before a project is set to begin. For reactor facilities, long-lead items have traditionally included physical components such as large pressure vessels or instrumentation and control platforms. Increasingly, however, licensee programs and management systems important to the safety of the facility have the same traits as traditional long-lead items, for example such as authorized nuclear operator training, site evaluation programs, and procurement. There is increasing pressure in the nuclear power industry to meet very demanding construction and commissioning timelines and this is resulting in increased use of long-lead items as a tool to mitigate against risks to a project timeline. There are a number of regulatory and licensing considerations that need to be taken into account when planning long-lead items to ensure that those items will meet regulatory requirements for a reactor facility project. This paper will discuss these considerations including the regulatory tools used by the CNSC to address the use of long-lead items.