The importance of low carbon energy sources in the efforts against rapid climate change makes nuclear energy part of a sustainable energy mix. Although there have been years of experience feedback with water cooled reactors, fundamental improvement, particularly regarding intrinsic safety and reduced nuclear waste generation is possible using advanced nuclear designs. Heavy metal cooled systems such as the lead fast reactor (LFR) combine the advantages of a fast reactor system that reduces waste with the intrinsic safety related properties such as the high boiling point, chemical inertia and improved heat transfer. ANSELMUS responds to the Horizon-Euratom -2021-NRT-01-02 call ?Safety of advanced and innovative nuclear designs and fuels. Its objective is to contribute significantly to the safety assessment of heavy-liquid-metal (HLM) systems, in particular ALFRED and MYRRHA as these are included in the roadmap for the development of advanced systems in Europe. It will use the maturity of both designs to create two detailed phenomena identification and ranking tables (PIRT) that identify all verification and validation needs and are used for further safety evaluation. The project will also experimentally validate key safety related sub-systems including the safety rods, failed fuel pin detection and the coolant chemistry control system. We also will improve the validation of numerical models describing the fuel assembly through experiments and simulations and work on reactor safety monitoring and inspection of HLM systems focusing on high temperature vessel inspection. Moreover, ANSELMUS will look into the societal impact of HLM reactors by assessing the integration of LFR in a mixed energy landscape, including economical aspects, and by addressing social and ethical considerations of advanced nuclear technologies. Finally, a dedicated effort will be put into education and dissemination towards all stakeholders including policy makers and the general public.

High-assay low-enriched uranium metal (HALEU) is a critical resource required for the operation of research reactors and the production of pharmaceutical radioisotopes. Its availability is essential for advancing nuclear energy safety, materials science, basic scientific research, and the performance of about 40 million nuclear medicine procedures worldwide each year. Until recently, EU has relied on Russia and the USA for its supply of HALEU. Russian supplies are expected to be unavailable for an extended period, and the future availability of US supplies remains uncertain: it is thus imperative for EU to establish its own HALEU production capacity. The PreP-HALEU initiative represents a preparatory phase aimed at producing essential components and evaluating the technical pathways for establishing this capacity in EU. This project consortium brings together all key stakeholders, including enrichment companies, fuel manufacturers, research organizations, and medical radioisotope producers. Through this collaborative effort, PreP-HALEU intends to: • Generate substantial technical, economic, and regulatory information to support the decision-making process. • Foster alignment among the countries and parties involved in establishing a EU HALEU capability as a shared asset. Within the framework of PreP-HALEU, the quantitative requirements for HALEU metal will be updated, and working groups will delve into enrichment, metallization, and transportation considerations. The integration of these elementary bricks will be extensively discussed to create a coherent project dynamic and consistently consolidate results into an executive summary, a key input for the decision-making phase. The PreP-HALEU project, initiated in response to the NRT01-11 call for proposals, is a cornerstone in the establishment of a EU production capacity for metal HALEU. It plays a pivotal role in securing activities in the fields of research, healthcare, and innovation throughout EU.

Safety Assessment of Non-Electric uses of nuclear energy (SANE) project investigates the potential of non-electric usage of nuclear energy, the safety aspects of reactors designed for non-electric use as well as the safety implications of the end use. As many of the applications are novel, their use needs to be properly communicated to various stakeholders, and for this the project includes work on risk communication. Non-electric uses are identified in EU SMR pre-Partnership as one of the high level R&D needs, and the understanding of the potential applications and their limitations as well as the challenges in integration of nuclear energy to end use were seen as important issues to be studied. Non-electric uses will be an important way to diversify the income streams of nuclear plants, as the electricity production will become more and more competitive. Nuclear has unique advantages in non-electric uses as it can produce lot of energy locally for large local uses. SANE aims to review potential future uses of nuclear energy in order to facilitate their implementation in the near future. This project aims to provide information for both industrial applications retrofitted to operating nuclear power plants, as well as for novel reactors dedicated for non-electric uses. Information needs for appropriate risk communication is studied with case studies in several countries, and a specific study on communications during abnormal situations is done based on the events that transpired in Ukraine during Russia's invasion.

This proposal is an application to the EU programme “Horizon 2020” and its topic “Large scale energy storage” (LCE-09-2015). The presented project “STORE&GO” will demonstrate three “innovative Power to Gas storage concepts” at locations in Germany, Switzerland and Italy in order to overcome technical, economic, social and legal barriers. The demonstration will pave the way for an integration of PtG storage into flexible energy supply and distribution systems with a high share of renewable energy. Using methanation processes as bridging technologies, it will demonstrate and investigate in which way these innovative PtG concepts will be able to solve the main problems of renewable energies: fluctuating production of renewable energies; consideration of renewables as suboptimal power grid infrastructure; expensive; missing storage solutions for renewable power at the local, national and European level. At the same time PtG concepts will contribute in maintaining natural gas or SNG with an existing huge European infrastructure and an already advantageous and continuously improving environmental footprint as an important primary/secondary energy carrier, which is nowadays in doubt due to geo-political reasons/conflicts. So, STORE&GO will show that new PtG concepts can bridge the gaps associated with renewable energies and security of energy supply. STORE&GO will rise the acceptance in the public for renewable energy technologies in the demonstration of bridging technologies at three “living” best practice locations in Europe.

Main idea is to allow individual users and urban communities in remote (isolated) areas to benefit from a local low carbon economy. The project will enable the communities and individual users to participate in the smart grid context, it will develop an intelligent storage solution optimizing the communities demand and supply. The solution will be scalable towards size of the community (30-10.000 households) and their capacity of renewable energy generation and available storage capacity (i.e. number of EV´s). It will: Scale up of cheap and more environmental friendly storage solution for medium/ low voltages It will mitigate on electricity poverty related to the intermittent generation of renewable electricity Development of the business model between community and local and national renewable energy generation. Flatten the peak demands to Distribution System Operators (DSO´s)/ Energy Service Companies (ESCo´s) network Development of the local smart charging model (for the EV´s) for the community to reduce peak demands (optional) Research on new needs of communication protocols between end users (smart meters, EV) with storage solution and / or retailer in line with Expert Group of the SMGT