Site selection – Indian Practice

Prabir C Basu
Consultant
Structural Engineering and Nuclear Facility Safety

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 Content
• Introduction
• Site selection process
• Preliminary site evaluation
• Other requirements
• Summary

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 Introduction
Site of a nuclear facility (NF) is the geographical location under the
management of an organization authorized to construct, operate
and decommission the facility, or to perform specific activity
involving radiological and nuclear safety.

Indian Siting Process for Nuclear Facilities

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 Introduction
• An NPP site should appropriately be selected and
adequately evaluated for conservative design and
construction of structures, systems and components
(SSC) important to safety so that site-plant
interaction does not cause harmful effects of ionizing
radiation to the plant personnel, public and the
environment, both during normal operation and
during & after accident :
– Green field site: all proposed facilities are considered in
assessing the radiological dose.
– Existing site, all collocated existing facilities and future
facilities are considered in the assessment.

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 Introduction
• Government of India selects sites for NF through the Standing
Site Selection committee (SSSC).
• It does not come under the purview of regulatory control.
• SSSC follows requirements and criteria of AERB/NF/SC/S (R1).
• This Code is equivqlent to IAEA-NSG-3 with; some differences
• For example, total number of stages of for site evaluation is 5
in IAEA-NS-R-3 and 6 in AERB/NF/SC/S (R-1). Other examples
are variations in terminology .

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 Indian Site Selection Process
• Indian siting process is a multi state process,
Step-1: Identification of potential regions

Site Survey Step-2: Identification of potential sites

Step-3: Identification of candidate sites
Site Selection Step-4: Preferred list of acceptable site

• Site selection for NPPs, in India, is performed

through a national committee, “Standing Site
Selection Committee” (SSSC).

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 Site Selection process in India

Govt.
Exclusion Discretionery of
State
criteria Criteria India
Govt.

Desired Potential Candidate Recommended Selected

region(s) sites sites site(s) site(s)

Site survey stage SSSC Site selection stage

Site selection process of NPP in India

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Site Selection Proces,IAEA-SSG-35 8
 Indian Site Selection Process
• Step-1: Identification of Potential Regions
• `SSSC approaches to the State Government pf the
States within which potential regions are identified
based on the broad guide lines provided by the
Central Government.
• Step-2: Identification of Potential Sites
• State-Governments of the desired regions identify
the potential sites based on the technical (safety
related and non safety related) and administrative
guidelines
• The safety related guidelines are developed from the
regulations of AERB
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 Indian Site Selection Process
• Step-3: Identification of Candidate site
• Generic requirements/criteria for Site Evaluation:
1. Site safety requirements and criteria (from radiological
considerations) laid down by Atomic Energy Regulatory
Board (AERB): - SDV.
2. Environmental safety requirements (from non-radiological
considerations) laid down by Ministry of Environment and
Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
3. Non-safety related operational requirements.
• For site selection preliminary site evaluation is carried
out using exclusion criteria for 1 & 3.
• This preliminary evaluation screens the potential sites
and identifies the candidate sites, which are acceptable
sites from safety & other considerations. 10
 Indian Site Selection Process

• Step-4: Site Selection

• The candidate sites are ranked based ranking
analysis with respect to discretionary criteria .
• In India, the demand of site is so high that necessity
of detailed quantitative ranking analysis of
candidate site is yet to be felt.
• SSSC recommends a list of acceptable sites ranked in
order of preference.
• Finally the Central Government selects site/sites
from the recommended list

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 Preliminary site evaluation
Database for site selection

• Data/information collected from existing

sources,
• Data/ information gathered from the visits to
potential sites,
• If existing data/information is not sufficient
(especially for exclusion criteria), limited site
investigation is carried out.

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 Preliminary site evaluation
• The preliminary site evaluation is conducted in Step-3
to screen potential sites considering the exclusion
criteria of the following categories:
– Impact of site on plant,
– Impact of plant on site;
– Emergency management planning;
– Meeting up of other statutory requirements; and
– Non-safety related attributes.
• First three considerations is safety related..
• The evaluation principally is conducted by
examining exclusion criteria.
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 Preliminary site evaluation

• The preliminary site evaluation ensure that the

resulting candidate sites are engineer able for safe
operation, and
• A site is not engineer able if the effects of
evaluated hazard cannot be compensated by
means of
– Design features,
– Site protection measures, and
– Operating (administrative) procedure.
• The ranking analysis can also be viewed as one sort
of preliminary site evaluation.

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 Indian Site Selection Process

• If a potential site does not satisfy SDVs, it can still

be considered acceptable for candidate site
provided the solutions by means of engineering
provisions, measures for site protection and / or by
means of administrative procedures are worked out
satisfying the safety requirements.
• Such analysis requires excessive resources; and in
some cases it may become impracticable to find a
solution (e.g. surface faulting, large liquefaction,
etc.).

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 Preliminary site evaluation
Exclusion criteria – SDV of important EE
Events / Issue Class SDV
Natural
Distance of site from nearest capable fault. Safety 5.0 Km.
Bio sensitive region and reserve forest Safety Exclusion zone.
Sand dune Safety Site with potential of
dune is avoided.
Human Induced
Dist. from airports including military airfields Safety 16.0 km
Military installations storing ammunitions etc. Safety 16.0 km
Facilities with storing handling corrosive, toxic, Safety 16.0 km
or explosive material & mining activities.
Historical monument & places of pilgrimage, Safety 5.0 km
tourists interest
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 Preliminary site evaluation
Exclusionary external events
Events /Issue Potential Hazard (Exclusionary) Class
Earthquake Surface rupture Safety
Geotechnical Slope instability (massive land slide) Safety
Massive liquefaction
Massive Karst
Volcanism Lava flow Safety
Pyroclastic flow
Ground deformation
Massive Lahars
Feasibility of implementation of Safety
emergency procedure
Water Availability of cooling water Non
safety
Thermal and Non radiological environmental Non
chemical pollution impact safety17
 Indian Regulation of NPP Siting
Acceptance Criteria

• The site shall be deemed unsuitable for a proposed

nuclear facility of a given size if the evaluation
considering all the concerned aspects indicates that
the deficiencies identified, cannot be compensated
by means of
• engineering provisions, i.e. design features,
• measures for site protection, and / or
• administrative procedures.

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 Site Selection
Additional statutory requirements
 Additional statutory requirements from other regulatory
bodies in relation to siting are,

Item Agency
Civil aviation clearance National Airport Authority,
Govt. of India
Proximity to defence Ministry of Defence,
installations Govt. of India
Proximity to international Ministry of External Affairs,
borders Govt. of India
Waterways State Maritime Boards,
Ministry of Shipping

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 Summary

• India has well-established practice for site selection

process.
• It is a multi stage process – completing in 4 stages.
• Site selection does not fall under the purview of
regulatory control in India
• Site selection process follows AERB Safety Code, Site
Evaluation of Nuclear Facilities, AERB/NF/SC/S
(Rev.1), which covers the criteria and requirements
of site evaluation during the entire life cycle of an NF.

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Thank
you
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