Enhanced Candu gains approval
09 April 2010
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has said that the overall design intent of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd's (AECL's) Enhanced Candu 6 is compliant with its requirements. This is the first milestone in licensing the design for actual deployment in the country and comes at the end of the first phase of assessment. The second detailed part of assessment may now begin and will run until 2012. The so-called EC6 design is a pressurized heavy water similar to previous Candu models that nevertheless includes some "significant differences," according to the CNSC. The reference units for the design are the Qinshan 5 and 6 units in China, which produce 665 MWe net. AECL also has also put its Advanced Candu Reactor (ACR1000) design to the CNSC and this passed the first phase assessment in September 2009.