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European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group

How the stress test process works

  1. Self-assessment by operators

Nuclear power plant operators in the EU and beyond conduct stress tests to find out how their plants would respond to a range of extreme events, such as earthquakes and floods. The findings of the stress test are then set out in a report.

  1. Review by regulators and peer review teams

National nuclear safety regulators review the operators’ reports and prepare summary national reports. These summary reports are then reviewed by peer review teams set up by ENSREG.

  1. National action plans

After the reviews, national authorities in the participating countries draft national action plans on implementing the recommendations from the reviews. These plans can be systematically updated until all recommendations are fully implemented. During the initial EU-wide exercise, ENSREG also produced an EU-level action plan. Lastly, ENSREG’s peer review team concludes the stress test exercise by producing a final peer review report.

  1. Status reports and follow-up

Implementation of the national action plans and ENSREG peer review team recommendations is monitored over time. Since 2011, some countries have gone through several rounds of reviewing and producing action plans. Progress is monitored through regular status reports, usually submitted every 2 years.