SMART
SMART is a light water-cooled reactor design from Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute rated at 100 MWe. The design is approved by a regulator, but no unit has a construction permit.
The first small modular reactor design anywhere to receive a standard design approval, granted by South Korea's regulator on 4 July 2012. Fourteen years later nothing has been built. It is the most direct evidence on this tracker that regulatory approval and a project are different things: a design can hold the highest paper standing in the industry and still have no customer, no site and no concrete. A collaboration with Saudi Arabia has been running since 2015 without producing a construction start.
| Tier | Design approved |
|---|---|
| Regulator | Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (South Korea) |
| Application type | Standard Design Approval |
| Docket / reference | NSSC Standard Design Approval, granted 4 July 2012 |
| Application date | 2010 |
| Review phase | Standard design approval held since 2012; no unit built |
| Decision expected | Granted 4 July 2012 |
| Coolant | Light water |
|---|---|
| Reactor family | Pressurised water reactor (PWR) |
| Electrical output | 100MWe |
| Thermal output | 365MWt |
| Fuel | Uranium dioxide |
| Enrichment | LEUUnder 5% U-235 |
| First site | none announced |
| Offtakers | none announced |
Sources
- World Nuclear News, South Korean SMR design approved by regulator · retrieved 2026-09-06
How these sources are used, including the corrections applied on top of them and what is deliberately left blank · download the underlying data