The Japanese company has signed an agreement with the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency (EA) which will enable the company to support work undertaken during the design assessment.
The ONR and the EA will now begin work with Hitachi-GE on the timescale and resources needed for the assessment, with Hitachi-GE meeting all the costs for the design assessment.
Horizon Nuclear Power, which was bought by Hitachi-GE in October last year, plans to build six ABWRs at Wylfa, Anglesey and Oldbury, Gloucestershire.
Horizon chief operating officer, Alan Raymant, said: “Now that the assessment agreements are in place, Hitachi-GE will be able to begin a meaningful preparatory process for their first major submissions to the regulator later this year”.
“GDA is a long-term and rigorous process, which will ultimately determine whether the regulators will consider the ABWR suitable for construction in the UK. The ABWR is a proven international reactor, operating at four sites in Japan, and licensed in the USA and Taiwan.”
Ken Sato, General Manager, Licensing, Hitachi Europe Limited for Hitachi-GE said: “We are very pleased to have made such swift progress over the recent months. We will now work to develop strong and credible submissions to the regulators, which we hope to make during this year”.