Korean Consortium Submits i-SMR Standard Design to NSSC, Eyes 2028 Approval

The i‑SMR Technology Development Project Group, led by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, submitted an application to the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission on 27 February for standard design approval of a 170 MWe integrated pressurized water reactor, a move the consortium says will clear the path toward exports and domestic replacement of coal plants. The NSSC acknowledged receipt of the filing, and the consortium has set a series of milestones that make regulatory approval the immediate bottleneck for deployment.

Project milestones are specific and aggressive: the consortium plans to complete the detailed standard design by the end of 2025, obtain standard design approval in 2028, begin construction of a first‑of‑a‑kind demonstration unit in 2029, and push toward commercialization in the mid‑2030s, with some partners explicitly targeting commercial operation by 2035. Those dates separate the engineering completion task from the regulatory approval window and leave roughly one year between approval and FOAK construction start in the project roadmap.

Technically, the i‑SMR is an integrated PWR with an electrical output described as 170 MW or 170 MWe in partner materials and trade reporting. Developers emphasize fully passive safety systems that are designed to confine the Emergency Planning Zone within the site boundary, a feature the project says will reduce regulatory complexity and expand siting flexibility. The design is pitched as a coal‑plant replacement for domestic grids and export markets; KHNP states the i‑SMR “requires one‑third of the investment, and can be constructed in half the time compared with large reactors,” a claim the consortium attributes to its internal cost and schedule assumptions.

Regulatory benefits of the standard design route are explicit. Seoul Economic Daily described standard design certification as “a procedure where regulatory authorities verify that a reactor is designed to operate safely.” NSSC guidance notes that standard design approval can be used when repeating construction of the same design, that approved information need not be re‑submitted with later construction or operation permit filings, and that a standard design approval is valid for 10 years. Those administrative effects are central to the consortium’s export and repeat‑construction strategy.

The NSSC has already taken preparatory steps. The commission held a review preparation workshop where licensing issues and schedules were discussed with participants that included the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, the Korea Institute of Atomic Energy Control, the Small Modular Reactor Regulatory Research Promotion Group, developers including KHNP and Korea Electric Power Company, and other stakeholders. Seoul Economic Daily reported that the NSSC allocated 22.5 billion won for SMR‑related regulatory research in this year’s budget and has completed staffing reinforcements for the i‑SMR standard design certification review, adding capacity for the expected workload. The paper quoted the NSSC as saying it “has committed to ensuring i‑SMR commercialization proceeds without delay.”

Regulatory design review practices are still being tested in Korea. Presentations to the Transactions of the Korean Nuclear Society and KINS materials outline a pre‑design review program to identify licensing and safety issues early, while warning of longer review periods, high regulatory resource consumption, and the risk of lower completeness in early reviews. Korea’s experience will be watched internationally given past precedents such as NuScale’s U.S. review and SMART’s earlier standard design approval in 2012 and its 2019 Korea‑Saudi memorandum of understanding for commercialization.

Policy analysts urge parallel international work to translate a Korean standard design into export credentials. Recommendations include registering approved designs with the IAEA ARIS system, trilateral pilot deployments with U.S. and Japanese partners, and coordinated insurance and fuel‑supply arrangements to ease uptake in emerging markets. With the application in the NSSC pipeline and 22.5 billion won earmarked for regulatory research, the next decisive signal will be how quickly the NSSC completes its technical review toward the consortium’s 2028 certification target.