Balancing Digital Technologies and Cyber risks for Small Modular Reactors in Remote Environments

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Small Modular Reactors (SMR) are moving forward in Canada with a request to start construction at The Darlington site in Ontario, selection of sites in Saskatchewan, and expressions of interest in New Brunswick and Alberta. All of the potential SMR designs are expected to have some common aspects which include digitization (control rooms, field communications), reduction in staff levels, and use of advanced communication devices (Smart devices, remote monitoring). The operations environment is expected to be significantly different than for current Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) and thus this will impact training methods and skill requirements. Employees for SMRs may have a smaller plant and thus less components to deal with but are likely going to need higher inter-disciplinary skills and have a stronger dependency on automated systems, machine learning tools and artificial intelligence algorithms for maintenance and operation of SMRs. Understanding the impact of new designs is important to understand how human performance may be impacted. With the dramatic shift in the available information technology (IT) that is expected to be incorporated into an SMR and the impact of the local working environment, it is expected there will be a corresponding significant impact on the nature of how the IT technology will be used and the role of the human operator. This proposal is to study the impact of developing IT on SMR design while incorporating the impact of the local environment (remote sites, poor communications). The work shall consider the benefits and likely challenges associated with the new technologies with the intent of identified potential solutions, appropriate areas to standardize and what the role regulations may need to play in the future SMR designs.