Draft National Policy Statement for nuclear energy generation (EN-7): IET Comments to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on the 3rd of April 2025.

The IET has responded to an open consultation from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The consultation aims to enable nuclear development in more locations, making Britain a clean energy superpower, reducing the dependency on fossil fuel markets. Nuclear energy has the potential to boost energy security, drive growth and support decarbonisation but must it be developed in a way that is both safe and suitable.
The IET recommends:

• To ensure the National Policy Statement remains flexible to deployment of nuclear in diverse locations, government needs to provide further clarity regarding offshore nuclear power plant development as this is currently not explicit within the statement.
• If SMRs/AMRs can prove they are intrinsically safe and do not pose any offsite risks, it will be important to review the semi-urban population criteria to ensure that high energy technical developments such as Data centres are not being restricted.
• Reforms to Great British Nuclear (GBN) should take place to provide a clear definition and purpose. This will allow GBN to provide the public with high quality information from a reliable source.
• Government should facilitate the environmental knowledge retained with the regulatory bodies to a database for developers, as this would speed up decision making and regulatory applications.
• Whilst we agree that it is important to retain the <50MW (electric) threshold for nuclear power plants, Government must clearly outline the thresholds that will trigger a review into the existing planning framework in the future.