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Nuclear Energy Ordinance
(NEO)

The Federal Council,

on the basis of Article 101, paragraph 1 of the Nuclear Energy Act of 21 March 20031 (NEA),

ordains:

Chapter 1 General Provisions

Art. 1 Nuclear materials covered by this Ordinance 2

1 Nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als are:

a.
source ma­ter­i­als:
1.
nat­ur­al urani­um, i.e. urani­um with the mix­ture of iso­topes that oc­curs in nature,
2.
de­pleted urani­um, i.e. urani­um that has a lower per­cent­age of urani­um 235 than nat­ur­al urani­um,
3.
thori­um,
4.
the sub­stances men­tioned in num­bers 1-3 above in the form of met­al, al­loys, chem­ic­al com­pounds or con­cen­trates and oth­er ma­ter­i­als that con­tain one or more of the above­men­tioned sub­stances in a con­cen­tra­tion spe­cified by the In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­ergy Agency or high­er;
b.
spe­cial fis­sile ma­ter­i­als:
1.
plutoni­um 239,
2.
urani­um 233,
3.
urani­um 235,
4.
en­riched urani­um, i.e. urani­um in which the per­cent­age of urani­um 233, urani­um 235 or both iso­topes to­geth­er is high­er than that of urani­um 235 in nat­ur­al urani­um,
5.
the sub­stances men­tioned in num­bers 1-4 above in the form of met­al, al­loys, chem­ic­al com­pounds or con­cen­trates and oth­er ma­ter­i­als that con­tain one or more of the above­men­tioned sub­stances in a con­cen­tra­tion spe­cified by the In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­ergy Agency or high­er.

2 The fol­low­ing are not clas­si­fied as nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als:

a.
urani­um and thori­um ores;
b.
source ma­ter­i­als and products made from source ma­ter­i­als that are not used for ob­tain­ing en­ergy by means of nuc­le­ar fis­sion pro­cesses, and in par­tic­u­lar shield­ing ma­ter­i­als, sensors in meas­ur­ing in­stru­ments, ceram­ic com­pounds and al­loys;
c.
spe­cial fis­sile ma­ter­i­als with a weight of up to 15 grams and products made from spe­cial fis­sile ma­ter­i­als that are not used for ob­tain­ing en­ergy by means of nuc­le­ar fis­sion pro­cesses, and in par­tic­u­lar sensors in meas­ur­ing in­stru­ments and oth­er fin­ished products for which the re­cov­ery of the spe­cial fis­sile ma­ter­i­als con­tained therein re­quires dis­pro­por­tion­ate tech­nic­al ef­fort or fin­an­cial ex­pense.

2 Amended by An­nex 6 No II 2 of the Safe­guards Or­din­ance of 21 March 2012, in force since 1 May 2012 (AS 2012 1703).

Art. 2 Nuclear installations covered by this Ordinance

1 In­stall­a­tions in which the fol­low­ing nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als are ob­tained, pro­duced, used, pro­cessed or stored are not clas­si­fied as nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions:

a.
sub­stances that con­tain a total of not more than 1,000 kg of nat­ur­al urani­um, de­pleted urani­um or thori­um;
b.
source ma­ter­i­als for which evid­ence can be provided that a sus­tain­able chain re­ac­tion is not pos­sible due to the chemico-phys­ic­al con­di­tion of the ma­ter­i­als and the ex­ist­ing op­er­at­ing con­di­tions;
c.
spe­cial fis­sile ma­ter­i­als that con­tain a total max­im­um of 150 grams of plutoni­um 239, urani­um 233 or urani­um 235.

1bis In­stall­a­tions out­side nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions in which ra­dio­act­ive waste is stored in or­der to de­cay in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 117 of the Ra­di­olo­gic­al Pro­tec­tion Or­din­ance of 26 April 20173 (RPO) are also not clas­si­fied as nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions.4

2 The Fed­er­al Of­fice of En­ergy (the Fed­er­al Of­fice) shall de­term­ine wheth­er source ma­ter­i­als meet the re­quire­ments with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 1 let­ter b.

3 SR 814.501

4 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

Art. 3 Brokerage activities covered by this Ordinance

Activ­it­ies in­volving nuc­le­ar goods with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 3 let­ter k of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act are not clas­si­fied as broker­age activ­it­ies if the nuc­le­ar goods con­cerned are in­ten­ded to meet own needs with­in Switzer­land.

Art. 4 Definitions

The defin­i­tions in An­nex 1 ap­ply.

Art. 5 Sectoral plan for deep geological repositories

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shall spe­cify in a sec­tor­al plan the ob­ject­ives and cri­ter­ia for the dis­pos­al of ra­dio­act­ive waste in deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies which are leg­ally bind­ing for the rel­ev­ant au­thor­it­ies.

Art. 6 Supervisory authorities 5

The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies are:

a.
the Swiss Fed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate (EN­SI) with re­gard to nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity;
b.
the Fed­er­al Of­fice for oth­er areas of en­force­ment of the NEA.

5 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Chapter 2 Principles of Nuclear Safety and Security

Art. 7 Requirements concerning nuclear safety

The fol­low­ing meas­ures must be taken in or­der to guar­an­tee nuc­le­ar safety.

a.
Es­tab­lished or proven high-qual­ity pro­cesses, ma­ter­i­als, tech­no­lo­gies and or­gan­isa­tion­al struc­tures and pro­cesses must be used in con­nec­tion with design, con­struc­tion, com­mis­sion­ing and op­er­a­tion of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions. This ap­plies es­pe­cially to the areas of plan­ning, man­u­fac­ture, test­ing, op­er­a­tion, sur­veil­lance, main­ten­ance, qual­ity as­sur­ance, eval­u­ation of op­er­a­tion­al ex­per­i­ence feed­back, er­go­nom­ic design as well as ba­sic and ad­vanced train­ing and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment.
b.
Any de­vi­ations from nor­mal op­er­a­tion should be countered as far as pos­sible by en­sur­ing that the be­ha­viour of the in­stall­a­tion is self-reg­u­lat­ing and fault-tol­er­ant. Wherever pos­sible, the be­ha­viour of the in­stall­a­tion must be in­her­ently safe. The term «in­her­ently safe» is un­der­stood to mean that a giv­en sys­tem func­tions safely on its own, i.e. without the sup­port of aux­il­i­ary sys­tems.
c.
In or­der to deal with ac­ci­dents, the in­stall­a­tion must be de­signed in such a man­ner as to en­sure that the sur­round­ings are not ex­posed to im­per­miss­ible ra­di­olo­gic­al ef­fects. For this pur­pose, the in­stall­a­tion must be equipped with both pass­ive and act­ive safety sys­tems.
d.
Ad­di­tion­al tech­nic­al, or­gan­isa­tion­al and ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures must be taken to pre­vent and mit­ig­ate the con­sequences if harm­ful quant­it­ies of ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances might be re­leased in case of an ac­ci­dent

Art. 8 Requirements concerning measures to prevent accidents

1 Pre­vent­ive and pro­tect­ive meas­ures must be taken to avoid ac­ci­dents in nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions that may ori­gin­ate either with­in (in­tern­al) or out­side (ex­tern­al) the in­stall­a­tion.

2 In­tern­al ini­ti­at­ing events in­clude re­act­iv­ity dis­turb­ance, loss of coolant, loss of heat sink, fire, flood­ing, mech­an­ic­al dam­age due to com­pon­ent fail­ure, dam­age to clad­ding when hand­ling fuel ele­ments, fail­ure of op­er­at­ing sys­tems, un­in­ten­tion­al ac­tiv­a­tion or faulty func­tion­ing of safety sys­tems, and mis­takes made by per­son­nel.

3 Ex­tern­al ini­ti­at­ing events in­clude earth­quake, flood­ing, ac­ci­dent­al crash of civil or mil­it­ary air­craft, squall, light­ning strike, shock wave, fire, loss of off-site power, impair­ment or loss of ex­tern­al cool­ing wa­ter sup­ply.

4 For the design of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 7 let­ter c, ac­ci­dents with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 2 and ac­ci­dents not triggered by nat­ur­al events with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 3 must be clas­si­fied by the fre­quency spe­cified in Art­icle 123 para­graph 2 RPO6. In ad­di­tion to the ini­ti­at­ing event, an un­re­lated single fail­ure must also be as­sumed. Proof must be provided that the re­quire­ments re­lat­ing to max­im­um ra­di­ation doses in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 123 para­graph 2 RPO are met.7

4bis For the design of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 7 let­ter c, in the case of ac­ci­dents triggered by nat­ur­al events in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3, the as­sump­tion shall be made of a nat­ur­al event with a fre­quency of 10‑3 per year and a nat­ur­al event with a fre­quency of 10‑4 per year. In ad­di­tion to a nat­ur­al event trig­ger­ing the ac­ci­dent, a sep­ar­ate in­di­vidu­al er­ror shall be as­sumed. It must be demon­strated that the dose res­ult­ing from a single such event for mem­bers of the pub­lic:

a.
is no great­er than 1 mSv in the case of a fre­quency of 10-3 per year;
b.
is no great­er than 100 mSv in the case of a fre­quency of 10-4 per year.8

5 Proof must be provided by prob­ab­il­ist­ic ana­lys­is that there is ad­equate pro­tec­tion against bey­ond-design-basis ac­ci­dents. For this pur­pose, the pre­vent­ive and mit­ig­at­ing meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 7 let­ter d may be taken in­to ac­count.9

6The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of the En­vir­on­ment, Trans­port, En­ergy and Com­mu­nic­a­tions (the De­part­ment) shall define the haz­ard as­sump­tions and as­so­ci­ated eval­u­ation cri­ter­ia in an or­din­ance.

6 SR 814.501

7 Amended by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

8 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

9 Amended by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

Art. 9 Requirements concerning security

1 The pro­tec­tion of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions and nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­al against sab­ot­age, ma­li­cious acts and un­au­thor­ised re­mov­al must be based on the prin­ciple of de­fence in depth, which en­com­passes struc­tur­al, tech­nic­al, or­gan­isa­tion­al, per­son­nel and ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures.

2 The prin­ciples for se­cur­ity zones and bar­ri­ers and for the pro­tec­tion of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions, nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als and ra­dio­act­ive waste are defined in An­nex 2.

3 The De­part­ment shall define the prin­ciples for haz­ard as­sump­tions and for struc­tur­al, tech­nic­al, or­gan­isa­tion­al and ad­min­is­trat­ive se­cur­ity meas­ures in an or­din­ance.

Art. 10 Basic principles for the design of nuclear power plants

1 The fol­low­ing prin­ciples ap­ply to nuc­le­ar power plants:

a.
Safety func­tions must also re­main ef­fect­ive even if a single fail­ure oc­curs in­de­pend­ently of an ini­ti­at­ing event, and also if a com­pon­ent is not avail­able due to main­ten­ance or re­pair. Such sep­ar­ate single fail­ures in­clude the ran­dom fail­ure of a com­pon­ent that res­ults in its in­ca­pa­city to per­form its in­ten­ded safety func­tion. Sub­sequent fail­ures arising from such ran­dom fail­ures are also re­garded as part of the ori­gin­al single fail­ure.
b.
Wherever pos­sible, safety func­tions must be im­ple­men­ted in ac­cord­ance with the prin­ciples of re­dund­ancy and di­versity. Re­dund­ancy refers to the ex­ist­ence of a lar­ger num­ber of func­tion­al devices than are re­quired for ful­filling the in­ten­ded safety func­tion. Di­versity refers to the use of dif­fer­ent types of phys­ic­al or tech­nic­al prin­ciples.
c.
Re­dund­ant trains of safety sys­tems in­stalled for per­form­ing safety func­tions must as far as pos­sible be in­de­pend­ent of one an­oth­er in terms of func­tion and in terms of both mech­an­ic­al and sup­port sys­tems such as in­stru­ment­a­tion and con­trol and pro­vi­sion of en­ergy, cool­ing and vent­il­a­tion.
d.
Each re­dund­ant train of a safety sys­tem in­stalled for per­form­ing a safety func­tion must as far as pos­sible be spa­tially sep­ar­ated from the oth­er trains.
e.
Re­dund­ant devices in­stalled for per­form­ing safety func­tions must be test­able, as far as pos­sible in their en­tirety, or oth­er­wise sub­divided in­to the broad­est pos­sible sub­parts, both manu­ally and through sim­u­lated auto­mat­ic ac­tiv­a­tion, in­clud­ing un­der emer­gency power sup­ply.
f.
Safety func­tions must be auto­mated so that, in the event of ac­ci­dents in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8, no in­ter­ven­tions im­port­ant to safety by per­son­nel are re­quired dur­ing the first 30 minutes fol­low­ing the ini­ti­at­ing event.
g.
The design of sys­tems and com­pon­ents must take suf­fi­cient ac­count of ap­pro­pri­ate safety mar­gins.
h.
As far as pos­sible, sys­tems should be de­signed to en­sure safety-ori­ented sys­tem be­ha­viour in the event of equip­ment fail­ures.
i.
Pref­er­ence must be giv­en to pass­ive rather than act­ive safety func­tions.
j.
Work sta­tions and pro­cesses for the op­er­a­tion and main­ten­ance of the in­stall­a­tion must be de­signed so that they take ac­count of hu­man cap­ab­il­it­ies and their lim­its.
k.
While en­sur­ing the same de­gree of safety, pref­er­ence must be giv­en to meas­ures to pre­vent ac­ci­dents in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 7 let­ter d over meas­ures to mit­ig­ate their con­sequences.

2 EN­SI shall spe­cify de­tailed design prin­ciples for light-wa­ter re­act­ors in guidelines.10

10 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 11 Design principles for deep geological repositories

1 In or­der to guar­an­tee long-term safety, the site for a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory must meet the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments:

a.
suf­fi­cient ex­tent of suit­able host rock;
b.
fa­vour­able hy­dro-geo­lo­gic­al con­di­tions;
c.
long-term geo­lo­gic­al sta­bil­ity.

2 A deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory must be de­signed to en­sure that:

a.
it com­plies by ana­logy with the prin­ciples of Art­icle 10 para­graph 1;
b.
it guar­an­tees long-term safety through mul­tiple pass­ive safety bar­ri­ers;
c.
steps to ease sur­veil­lance and re­pairs of the re­pos­it­ory, or for the re­cov­ery of the waste, in no way im­pair the ef­fect­ive­ness of the pass­ive safety bar­ri­ers after clos­ure of the re­pos­it­ory;
d.
it can be closed with­in a peri­od of a few years.

3 EN­SI shall is­sue guidelines that spe­cify:

a.
de­tailed design prin­ciples for deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies;
b.
the re­quire­ments for proof of the long-term safety deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies.11

11 Amended by No I of the O of 31 May 2024, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2024 (AS 2024 280).

Art. 12 Design principles for other nuclear installations

1 Art­icle 10 para­graph 1 ap­plies by ana­logy to the design of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions oth­er than nuc­le­ar power plants and deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies.

2 An in­ter­im stor­age in­stall­a­tion for ra­dio­act­ive waste must be de­signed to en­sure that:

a.
the suit­ab­il­ity for dis­pos­al of the waste pack­ages will not be im­paired;
b.
suf­fi­cient stor­age ca­pa­city is avail­able for the an­ti­cip­ated volume of waste.

3 EN­SI shall spe­cify de­tailed design prin­ciples for in­di­vidu­al types of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions in guidelines.12

12 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Chapter 3 Nuclear Goods

Art. 13 Responsibilities

The Fed­er­al Of­fice is re­spons­ible for:

a.
is­su­ing li­cences for hand­ling nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als;
abis.13
is­su­ing li­cences for the ex­port and me­di­ation of tech­no­logy re­lat­ing to nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als;
b.14
ap­prov­ing the agree­ment con­cern­ing the re­turn of ra­dio­act­ive waste.

13 In­ser­ted by An­nex 8 No I of the Goods Con­trol Or­din­ance of 3 June 2016, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2016 (AS 2016 2195).

14 Amended by No I of the O of 1. Nov. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 7107).

Art. 14 Licence procedure for the export and mediation of nuclear materials and technology relating to nuclear materials 15

1 The Fed­er­al Of­fice shall au­thor­ise ap­plic­a­tions for li­cences for the ex­port and me­di­ation of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als and tech­no­logy re­lat­ing to nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als un­less there is an in­dic­a­tion that the li­cens­ing re­quire­ments in Art­icle 7 NEA have not been met.

2 It shall re­fuse the ap­plic­a­tion if a ne­ces­sary li­cens­ing re­quire­ment in Art­icle 7 NEA has not been met.

3 In oth­er cases, it shall de­cide by agree­ment with the com­pet­ent of­fices of the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of For­eign Af­fairs, the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, Edu­ca­tion and Re­search and the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of De­fence, Civil Pro­tec­tion and Sport and in con­sulta­tion with the Fed­er­al In­tel­li­gence Ser­vice. If no agree­ment can be reached, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide based on the De­part­ment’s pro­pos­al.

15 Amended by An­nex 8 No I of the Goods Con­trol Or­din­ance of 3 June 2016, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2016 (AS 2016 2195).

Art. 15 Applications and related documentation

1 Ap­plic­a­tions for a li­cence for the trans­port as well as for im­port, ex­port or trans­it of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als must be sub­mit­ted jointly by the con­signor, the con­sign­ee, the car­ri­er and the trans­port or­gan­iser.

2 The doc­u­ments must provide all the ne­ces­sary in­form­a­tion for as­sess­ing the ap­plic­a­tion, in­clud­ing in par­tic­u­lar in­form­a­tion on:16

a.
the com­pos­i­tion and prop­er­ties of the ma­ter­i­al;
b.
the spe­cif­ic tech­nic­al data con­cern­ing the equip­ment;
c.
the place of man­u­fac­ture;
d.
the des­tin­a­tion and re­cip­i­ent;
e.
the des­ig­nated pur­pose;
f.
the con­di­tions of pur­chase or sale;
g.
trans­port, in par­tic­u­lar evid­ence of com­pli­ance with the re­quire­ments on the car­riage of dan­ger­ous goods;
h.17
the own­ers of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion that are li­able in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2 let­ter b of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Pub­lic Li­ab­il­ity Act of 13 June 200818;
i.19
proof of cov­er in ac­cord­ance with den Art­icles 1 let­ter c und 2 para­graph 3 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Pub­lic Li­ab­il­ity Or­din­ance of 25 March 201520.

3 Doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to ap­plic­a­tions for li­cences for the me­di­ation of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als or the ex­port or me­di­ation of tech­no­logy con­cern­ing nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als, must con­tain the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.
for nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als, in par­tic­u­lar de­tails con­cern­ing:
1.
com­pos­i­tion of the ma­ter­i­al,
2.
quant­ity,
3.
place of ori­gin and des­tin­a­tion or if un­known at the time of ap­plic­a­tion, place of per­form­ance;
b.
for tech­no­logy, de­tails with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 2 let­ters c to f, and in­form­a­tion about form and con­tent of the tech­no­logy.

4 On re­quest, the hold­er of a li­cence for the me­di­ation of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als must peri­od­ic­ally provide the Fed­er­al Of­fice with the fol­low­ing de­tails:

a.
com­pos­i­tion of the ma­ter­i­al;
b.
quant­it­ies;
c.
place of ori­gin and des­tin­a­tion or if un­known at time of ap­plic­a­tion, place of per­form­ance;
d.
type of un­der­ly­ing trans­ac­tion, time of per­form­ance;
e.
con­trac­tu­al part­ner(s).

5 The Fed­er­al Of­fice re­serves the right to re­quest ad­di­tion­al doc­u­ment­a­tion.

16 Amended by Art. 21 para. 2 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Pub­lic Li­ab­il­ity Or­din­ance of 25 March 2015, in force since 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2021860).

17 In­ser­ted by Art. 21 para. 2 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Pub­lic Li­ab­il­ity Or­din­ance of 25 March 2015, in force since 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2021860).

18 SR 732.44

19 In­ser­ted by Art. 21 para. 2 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Pub­lic Li­ab­il­ity Or­din­ance of 25 March 2015, in force since 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2021860).

20 SR 732.441

Art. 16 Preliminary clarifications

1 At the re­quest of the ap­plic­ant, the Fed­er­al Of­fice shall carry out pre­lim­in­ary cla­ri­fic­a­tions to de­term­ine wheth­er, and un­der which con­di­tions, a li­cence may be is­sued in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments afore­men­tioned in this chapter.

2 Pre­lim­in­ary cla­ri­fic­a­tions do not en­title the ap­plic­ant to a li­cence.

3 For the pur­pose of de­cid­ing on the is­su­ing of a li­cence, any already ex­amined pre­con­di­tions shall only be as­sessed dif­fer­ently if the ac­tu­al or leg­al cir­cum­stances have changed since the pre­lim­in­ary cla­ri­fic­a­tions were car­ried out, or if new facts should come to light.

Art. 17 Diplomatic or consular offices, international organisations, bonded warehouses, duty-free bonded warehouses and areas outside customs territory 21

The fol­low­ing types of de­liv­er­ies are equi­val­ent to im­port and ex­port activ­it­ies:

a.
from and to dip­lo­mat­ic or con­su­lar of­fices;
b.
from and to in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions;
c.
from or to bon­ded ware­houses, ware­houses for bulk art­icles, duty-free bon­ded ware­houses or areas out­side cus­toms ter­rit­ory.

21 Amended by An­nex 4 No 31 of the Cus­toms Or­din­ance of 1 Nov. 2006, in force since 1 May 2007 (AS 20071469).

Art. 18 Validity

Li­cences are val­id for no longer than 12 months and may only be ex­ten­ded for a max­im­um peri­od of 6 months.

Art. 1922

22 Re­pealed by An­nex 8 No I of the Goods Con­trol Or­din­ance of 3 June 2016, with ef­fect from 1 Ju­ly 2016 (AS 2016 2195).

Art. 20 Retention of documentation

All doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to li­cences must be re­tained for a peri­od of 5 years after is­sue of the li­cence, and must be sub­mit­ted to the rel­ev­ant au­thor­it­ies on re­quest.

Art. 21 Reporting obligation

1 Li­cence hold­ers must re­port to EN­SI in par­tic­u­lar on the fol­low­ing events and find­ings re­lat­ing to the safety of the trans­port of nuc­le­ar ma­ter­i­als:23

a.
ex­ceed­ing of dose rate, activ­ity or con­tam­in­a­tion lim­its;
b.
tech­nic­al de­fects on trans­port con­tain­ers sub­ject to ap­prov­al;
c.
any oth­er events and find­ings that im­pair or may im­pair safety.

2 The li­cence hold­er must re­port the fol­low­ing events and find­ings re­lat­ing to se­cur­ity to EN­SI without delay:24

a.
sab­ot­age and at­temp­ted sab­ot­age;
b.
bomb threats;
c.
ex­tor­tion and host­age-tak­ing;
d.
ac­ci­dent, dam­age to or fail­ure of se­cur­ity equip­ment and sys­tems that last longer than 24 hours;
e.
any oth­er events and find­ings that im­pair or may im­pair se­cur­ity.

3 The li­cence hold­er must sub­mit a re­port on every event or find­ing to EN­SI or to the Fed­er­al Of­fice. Re­ports on events and find­ings re­lat­ing to safety must be made in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 6. Re­ports re­lat­ing to se­cur­ity must be sub­mit­ted with­in 30 days and must be clas­si­fied.25

23 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

24 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

25 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Chapter 4 Nuclear Installations

Section 1 General Licence

Art. 22 Nuclear installations with low hazard potential

1 Nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions do not re­quire a gen­er­al li­cence if the fre­quency of all ac­ci­dents in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 para­graphs 2 and 3 with a res­ult­ing dose of more than 1 mSv for mem­bers of the pub­lic does not ex­ceed 10-6 per an­num. In the case of in­ter­im stor­age in­stall­a­tions and deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies, the total of activ­it­ies of all nuc­lides to be em­placed must not ex­ceed 1016 g LL in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 3 column 9 RPO26.27

2 EN­SI shall spe­cify the meth­od­o­logy and bound­ary con­di­tions for the ac­ci­dent ana­lys­is called for in para­graph 1 in guidelines.28

26SR 814.501

27 Amended by An­nex 11 No 4 of the Ra­di­olo­gic­al Pro­tec­tion Or­din­ance of 26 April 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 4261).

28 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 23 Application documents

Ap­plic­a­tions for a gen­er­al li­cence must be ac­com­pan­ied by the fol­low­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion:

a.
safety ana­lys­is re­port and se­cur­ity re­port that in­clude the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:
1.
site char­ac­ter­ist­ics,
2.
pur­pose and out­line of pro­ject,
3.
an­ti­cip­ated ex­pos­ure to ra­di­ation in the vi­cin­ity of the in­stall­a­tion,
4.
im­port­ant in­form­a­tion re­gard­ing or­gan­isa­tion and per­son­nel,
5.
in the case of deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies, in­dic­a­tion of long-term safety;
b.
en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact re­port;
c.
re­port on com­pli­ance with spa­tial plan­ning re­quire­ments;
d.
concept for de­com­mis­sion­ing, or for the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and clos­ure;
e.
feas­ib­il­ity demon­stra­tion of the man­age­ment and dis­pos­al of res­ult­ing ra­dio­act­ive waste.

Section 2 Construction Licence and Construction of Installation

Art. 24 Applications

1 Ap­plic­ants for a con­struc­tion li­cence must demon­strate that:

a.
they are able to com­ply with the prin­ciples afore­men­tioned in Art­icles 7 to 12;
b.29
c.
in the case of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions with low haz­ard po­ten­tial, the re­quire­ments afore­men­tioned in Art­icle 22 are met.

2 They must sub­mit the fol­low­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion:

a.
re­quired doc­u­ments for con­struc­tion li­cence as in­dic­ated in An­nex 4;
b.
en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact re­port;
c.
re­port on com­pli­ance with spa­tial plan­ning re­quire­ments;
d.
qual­ity man­age­ment pro­gramme for the plan­ning and con­struc­tion phase;
e.
emer­gency pre­pared­ness concept;
f.
de­com­mis­sion­ing plan or pro­ject for the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and plan for clos­ure of the in­stall­a­tion;
g.
re­port on com­pli­ance of the pro­ject with the gen­er­al li­cence re­quire­ments.

3 EN­SI shall reg­u­late the type, con­tent, present­a­tion and num­ber of re­quired ap­plic­a­tion doc­u­ments in guidelines.30

29 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 1. Nov. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 7107).

30 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 25 Quality management programme

1 In their qual­ity man­age­ment pro­gramme for the plan­ning and con­struc­tion phase, ap­plic­ants are re­quired to de­scribe the or­gan­isa­tion­al struc­ture and pro­cesses, in­clud­ing their co-op­er­a­tion with con­tract­ors, and with the rel­ev­ant li­cens­ing and su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies.

2 The qual­ity man­age­ment pro­gramme must take ac­count of the state of the art of nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity tech­no­logy.

3 Ap­plic­ants must have their qual­ity man­age­ment pro­gramme peri­od­ic­ally ex­amined by ex­tern­al aud­it­ors – and mod­i­fied where ne­ces­sary – in ac­cord­ance with cur­rent in­dustry stand­ards.

4 EN­SI shall spe­cify the de­tailed re­quire­ments on qual­ity man­age­ment pro­grammes in guidelines.31

31 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 26 Permits

1 For build­ings and sys­tem com­pon­ents that re­quire a per­mit in ac­cord­ance with the con­di­tions of the con­struc­tion li­cence, EN­SI shall grant per­mits:32

a.
for the con­struc­tion of build­ing struc­tures in­clud­ing em­bed­ded at­tach­ment ele­ments and the in­stall­a­tion of re­in­force­ment bars or the as­sembly of steel con­struc­tions and for the meth­od­o­logy ap­plied for modi­fic­a­tions to the ori­gin­al struc­ture and sub­sequently in­stalled fasten­ing ele­ments;
b.
for the man­u­fac­ture of the main mech­an­ic­al com­pon­ents;
c.
for the in­stall­a­tion of mech­an­ic­al and elec­tric­al sys­tems, in­clud­ing their in­stru­ment­a­tion and con­trol and for se­cur­ity equip­ment.

2 To ob­tain the ne­ces­sary per­mit, ap­plic­ants must sub­mit all the doc­u­ment­a­tion ne­ces­sary for the as­sess­ment as afore­men­tioned in An­nex 4.

3 EN­SI shall reg­u­late the type, con­tent, present­a­tion and num­ber of re­quired ap­plic­a­tion doc­u­ments in guidelines.33

32 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

33 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 27 Construction documentation

1 Li­cence hold­ers must fully doc­u­ment the con­struc­tion of build­ings and the man­u­fac­ture and as­sembly of tech­nic­al equip­ment, as well as im­ple­men­ted con­trols and in­spec­tions in a re­trace­able man­ner at all times.

2 All doc­u­ment­a­tion must be se­curely archived un­til com­ple­tion of the de­com­mis­sion­ing, or un­til clos­ure or ex­piry of the spe­cified mon­it­or­ing peri­od.

3 All modi­fic­a­tions car­ried out on the in­stall­a­tion, in­clud­ing de­com­mis­sion­ing or clos­ure, must be doc­u­mented.

4 The li­cence hold­er must hand over all doc­u­ment­a­tion to EN­SI after the in­stall­a­tion has been de­com­mis­sioned, or after it has been closed or the peri­od of ob­ser­va­tion has ex­pired to the De­part­ment.34

5 EN­SI shall spe­cify the de­tailed re­quire­ments on doc­u­ment­a­tion and archiv­ing in guidelines.35

34 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

35 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Section 3 Operating Licence

Art. 28 Application documents

1 Ap­plic­a­tions for an op­er­at­ing li­cence must be ac­com­pan­ied by the fol­low­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion:

a.
the re­quired or­gan­isa­tion­al and tech­nic­al doc­u­ment­a­tion as in­dic­ated in An­nex 3;
b.
the re­quired doc­u­ments for an op­er­at­ing li­cence as in­dic­ated in An­nex 4;
c.
evid­ence of in­sur­ance cov­er;
d.
the re­port on com­pli­ance of the in­stall­a­tion with the re­quire­ments of the gen­er­al li­cence and the con­struc­tion li­cence.

2 EN­SI shall reg­u­late the type, con­tent, present­a­tion and num­ber of re­quired ap­plic­a­tion doc­u­ments in guidelines.36

36 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 29 Permits

1 The op­er­at­ing li­cence shall re­quire per­mits for the fol­low­ing stages of the com­mis­sion­ing pro­ced­ure:

a.
the first de­liv­ery of nuc­le­ar fuel;
b.
the first fuel load;
c.
the first crit­ic­al­ity;
d.
the next stages in ac­cord­ance with the com­mis­sion­ing pro­gramme;
e.
con­tinu­ous op­er­a­tion in the first op­er­at­ing cycle;
f.
the first stor­age of waste pack­ages of a giv­en type;
g.
the stor­age of trans­port and stor­age casks with spent fuel ele­ments or high level waste.

2 To ob­tain the ne­ces­sary per­mit, ap­plic­ants must sub­mit the doc­u­ment­a­tion ne­ces­sary for the as­sess­ment as afore­men­tioned in An­nex 4.

3 EN­SI shall reg­u­late the type, con­tent, present­a­tion and num­ber of re­quired ap­plic­a­tion doc­u­ments in guidelines.37

37 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 30 Requirements concerning organisation

1 The or­gan­isa­tion of the in­stall­a­tion must be struc­tured in such a man­ner that it en­sures in­tern­al re­spons­ib­il­ity for at least the fol­low­ing activ­it­ies and areas:

a.
op­er­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion in all op­er­at­ing modes;
b.
main­ten­ance, ma­ter­i­al tech­no­logy and test­ing meth­ods, tech­nic­al sup­port;
c.
design and sur­veil­lance of the re­act­or core;
d.
ra­di­ation pro­tec­tion and ra­dio­act­ive waste;
e.
wa­ter chem­istry and use of chem­ic­al ad­dit­ives.
f.
emer­gency plan­ning and pre­pared­ness;
g.
su­per­vi­sion and as­sess­ment of nuc­le­ar safety;
h.
se­cur­ity;
i.
qual­ity as­sur­ance for ser­vices provided by con­tract­ors;
j.
ini­tial and con­tinu­ing train­ing of per­son­nel;
k.
fos­ter­ing of safety aware­ness.

2 The li­cence hold­er must or­gan­ise the per­son­nel in­to a man­age­able num­ber of or­gan­isa­tion­al units which are headed by a des­ig­nated man­ager. Depu­ties must also be ap­poin­ted for all man­agers.

3 The li­cence hold­er must ap­point a com­mit­tee that ana­lyses events and find­ings that are at­trib­ut­able to hu­man factors, and that pro­poses meas­ures and su­per­vises their im­ple­ment­a­tion.

4 The li­cence hold­er must des­ig­nate a po­s­i­tion for tech­nic­al op­er­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion that is provided with the ne­ces­sary com­pet­en­cies and re­sources, and that is re­spons­ible for de­cisions re­lat­ing to safety and se­cur­ity.

5 EN­SI shall spe­cify the de­tailed re­quire­ments on the or­gan­isa­tion in guidelines.38

38 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 31 Quality management system for operation

The qual­ity man­age­ment sys­tem for op­er­a­tion must meet the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
Re­spons­ib­il­it­ies and com­pet­en­cies for pro­cesses in the or­gan­isa­tion must be de­scribed clearly and in de­tail.
b.
Tasks of rel­ev­ance to safety and se­cur­ity must be defined in a man­age­ment cycle and must be sys­tem­at­ic­ally planned, ex­ecuted, con­trolled, doc­u­mented, in­tern­ally and ex­tern­ally audited on a peri­od­ic­al basis, and ad­jus­ted as ne­ces­sary.
c.
The qual­ity man­age­ment sys­tem must cor­res­pond to the state of the art of nuc­le­ar safety and se­cur­ity tech­no­logy.

Section 4 Operation

Art. 32 Maintenance, in-service inspection and functional testing

1 The li­cence hold­er must define sys­tem­at­ic pro­grammes for the main­ten­ance of safety and se­cur­ity equip­ment and must im­ple­ment the meas­ures spe­cified therein, in par­tic­u­lar re­lat­ing to:

a.
main­ten­ance;
b.
non-de­struct­ive in-ser­vice in­spec­tions;
c.
peri­od­ic func­tion­al tests.

2 Any de­vi­ations from the tar­get state must be rec­ti­fied by tak­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate re­pair meas­ures.

3 Qual­i­fied pro­ced­ures and equip­ment must be used for main­ten­ance, in­spec­tion and re­pair tasks, and these must be car­ried out by qual­i­fied per­son­nel.

4 All main­ten­ance and re­pair work must be doc­u­mented and the out­come peri­od­ic­ally eval­u­ated. Pro­grammes must be sup­ple­men­ted as ne­ces­sary.

Art. 33 Systematic safety and security assessments

1 The li­cence hold­er must carry out sys­tem­at­ic safety as­sess­ments for the fol­low­ing areas:

a.
im­pacts of modi­fic­a­tions to the in­stall­a­tion, and of events and find­ings, on the safety of the in­stall­a­tion, and in par­tic­u­lar on risk; each risk as­sess­ment must in­cor­por­ate an up-to-date, plant-spe­cif­ic prob­ab­il­ist­ic safety ana­lys­is (PSA);
b.
op­er­a­tion­al ex­per­i­ence feed­back from elec­tric­al and mech­an­ic­al equip­ment im­port­ant to safety, fuel ele­ments, struc­tures im­port­ant to safety and wa­ter chem­istry;
c.
ra­di­ation pro­tec­tion and ra­dio­act­ive waste;
d.
or­gan­isa­tion and per­son­nel;
e.
emer­gency plan­ning;
f.
cri­ter­ia in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 44 para­graph 1.

2 The li­cence hold­er must carry out sys­tem­at­ic se­cur­ity as­sess­ments for the fol­low­ing areas:

a.
se­cur­ity concept;
b.
phys­ic­al pro­tec­tion meas­ures.

3 EN­SI shall spe­cify the de­tailed re­quire­ments on sys­tem­at­ic safety and se­cur­ity as­sess­ments in guidelines.39

39 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 33a Reliability assessments 40

1 The reg­u­lar re­li­ab­il­ity as­sess­ments on per­sons who carry out func­tions that are es­sen­tial for nuc­le­ar safety and the se­cur­ity of the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion are gov­erned by the Or­din­ance of 8 Novem­ber 202341 on Per­son­nel Se­cur­ity Screen­ing (PSSO).

2 The costs of the as­sess­ments are borne by the in­stig­at­ing body in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 15 para­graph 4 let­ter a PSSO.

40 In­ser­ted by An­nex 8 No II 7 of the O of 8 Nov. 2023 on Per­son­nel Se­cur­ity Screen­ing, in force since 1 Jan. 2024 (AS 2023 736).

41 SR 128.31

Art. 34 Comprehensive safety reviews for nuclear power plants 42

1 The hold­er of an op­er­at­ing li­cence for a nuc­le­ar power plant must carry out a com­pre­hens­ive safety re­view every 10 years (Peri­od­ic Safety Re­view, PSR).

2 For this pur­pose it must:

a.
ex­plain and eval­u­ate the safety concept;
b.
con­duct a de­term­in­ist­ic ana­lys­is of the safety status and a PSR;
c.
ex­plain and eval­u­ate the over­all safety status;
d.
ex­plain and eval­u­ate wheth­er the or­gan­isa­tion of the plant and its per­son­nel sat­is­fy safety re­quire­ments.

3 The PSR doc­u­ments must be sub­mit­ted to EN­SI two years at the latest be­fore the end of any op­er­at­ing dec­ade.

4 For the peri­od fol­low­ing the fourth op­er­at­ing dec­ade, proof of safety for long-term op­er­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 34a must also be sub­mit­ted as part of the PSR.

5 EN­SI shall spe­cify the de­tailed re­quire­ments on peri­od­ic­al safety re­views in guidelines. It may provide re­lief for nuc­le­ar power plants for the peri­od fol­low­ing their be­ing defin­it­ively taken out of ser­vice or ex­empt them en­tirely from the ob­lig­a­tion to sub­mit a PSR.

42 Amended by No I of the O of 26 April 2017, in force since 1 June 2017 (AS 2017 2829).

Art. 34a Proof of safety for long-term operations 43

1 Proof of safety for long-term op­er­a­tions shall com­prise the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
the rel­ev­ant peri­od of op­er­a­tion;
b.
proof that the design lim­its for the parts of the plant with tech­nic­al safety rel­ev­ance will not be reached dur­ing the planned peri­od of op­er­a­tion;
c.
the back­fit­ting and tech­nic­al or or­gan­isa­tion­al im­prove­ments planned for the fol­low­ing op­er­at­ing dec­ade;
d.
the meas­ures in­ten­ded to guar­an­tee suf­fi­cient num­bers of staff with the re­quired ex­pert­ise for the planned peri­od of op­er­a­tion.

2 EN­SI shall spe­cify the de­tailed re­quire­ments on proof of safety for long-term op­er­a­tions in guidelines.

43 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 26 April 2017, in force since 1 June 2017 (AS 2017 2829).

Art. 35 Ageing management

1 With the aid of a pro­gramme for man­aging age­ing, the li­cence hold­er must sys­tem­at­ic­ally mon­it­or the age­ing of all sys­tems, struc­tures and com­pon­ents, the func­tions and in­teg­rity of which are of im­port­ance with re­gard to safety and se­cur­ity.

2 The res­ults must be eval­u­ated, and any ne­ces­sary meas­ures must be defined and duly im­ple­men­ted.

3 With the aid of the said pro­gramme for man­aging age­ing, the li­cence hold­er must doc­u­ment the in­spec­tion of the in­stall­a­tion from the point of view of the ef­fects of age­ing, and the pro­gramme must be peri­od­ic­ally up­dated in ac­cord­ance with the cur­rent status of the in­stall­a­tion.

4 EN­SI shall spe­cify the meth­ods and scope of the age­ing man­age­ment pro­gramme in guidelines.44

44 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 36 Monitoring the state of the art in science and technology and the operating experience in comparable installations

1 The li­cence hold­er must mon­it­or field-re­lated sci­entif­ic de­vel­op­ments, es­pe­cially find­ings ob­tained from re­search activ­it­ies, and must ex­am­ine the ex­tent to which con­clu­sions may be drawn there­from con­cern­ing safety and se­cur­ity of the li­cence hold­er’s in­stall­a­tion.

2 The li­cence hold­er must mon­it­or tech­no­lo­gic­al de­vel­op­ments, in­clud­ing those re­lat­ing to or­gan­isa­tion and per­son­nel, and must ex­am­ine the ex­tent to which con­clu­sions may be drawn there­from con­cern­ing the safety and se­cur­ity of the li­cence hold­er’s in­stall­a­tion. The fol­low­ing are of par­tic­u­lar rel­ev­ance:

a.
re­cog­nised do­mest­ic and for­eign tech­nic­al stand­ards;
b.
reg­u­la­tions of the coun­try sup­ply­ing the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion, as well as of oth­er coun­tries, re­lat­ing to nuc­le­ar tech­no­logy;
c.
re­com­mend­a­tions of in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies;
d.
state of the art in nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions of a sim­il­ar nature and in oth­er rel­ev­ant in­stall­a­tions.

3 The li­cence hold­er must mon­it­or op­er­at­ing ex­per­i­ences and find­ings of sim­il­ar in­stall­a­tions and as­sess their sig­ni­fic­ance for his own in­stall­a­tion.

Art. 37 Periodical reporting

1 In ac­cord­ance with An­nex 5, the li­cence hold­er must sub­mit re­ports to EN­SI for the pur­pose of as­sess­ing the status and op­er­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion.45

2 EN­SI shall reg­u­late the type, con­tent, present­a­tion and num­ber of re­quired re­ports in guidelines.46

45 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

46 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 38 Reporting obligations in the area of nuclear safety 47

1 Hold­ers of an op­er­at­ing li­cence must re­port the fol­low­ing activ­it­ies in par­tic­u­lar to EN­SI be­fore they are car­ried out:

a.
planned shut­down of a re­act­or;
b.
re­start of a re­act­or fol­low­ing shut­down due to an ac­ci­dent;
c.
work with an an­ti­cip­ated col­lect­ive dose ex­ceed­ing 50 mSv;
d.
planned non-routine dis­charge of ra­dio­activ­ity in­to the en­vir­on­ment;
e.
change of ac­tiv­ated car­bon in emer­gency fil­ters of vent­il­a­tion sys­tems;
f.
plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion of emer­gency ex­er­cises;
g.
ex­per­i­ments on sys­tems or com­pon­ents im­port­ant to safety.

2 They must re­port the fol­low­ing activ­it­ies to EN­SI:

a.
modi­fic­a­tions of sys­tems that are not sub­ject to li­cence or per­mit;
b.
changes in the con­tent of doc­u­ment­a­tion with­in the mean­ing of Art­icles 27 and 41.

3 They must re­port the fol­low­ing events and find­ings to EN­SI:

a.
any events that im­pair or may im­pair safety;
b.
any oth­er events of pub­lic in­terest;
c.
find­ings that may im­pair safety but have not giv­en rise to an event.

4 They must sub­mit to EN­SI all ne­ces­sary re­ports as in­dic­ated in An­nex 6.

5 EN­SI shall reg­u­late the re­port­ing pro­ced­ure in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1 and 2 and the meth­od of clas­si­fic­a­tion of events and find­ings in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 in guidelines.

47 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 39 Reporting obligations in the area of security 48

1 The hold­er of an op­er­at­ing li­cence must in par­tic­u­lar re­port the fol­low­ing activ­it­ies to EN­SI be­fore they are car­ried out:

a.49
b.
se­cur­ity-re­lated ex­er­cises with the in­volve­ment of mil­it­ary, can­ton­al or mu­ni­cip­al au­thor­it­ies;
c.
ex­traordin­ary se­cur­ity-re­lated activ­it­ies.

2 The hold­er of an op­er­at­ing li­cence must re­port the fol­low­ing ma­li­cious acts and find­ings to EN­SI without delay:

a.
use of vi­ol­ence against per­son­nel;
b.
sab­ot­age and at­temp­ted sab­ot­age;
c.
bomb threats;
d.
ex­tor­tion and host­age-tak­ing;
e.
ac­ci­dents, dam­age to or fail­ure of se­cur­ity equip­ment and sys­tems that last longer than 24 hours;
f.
ma­li­cious acts in and in the vi­cin­ity of the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion that are at­trib­ut­able to, or in­dic­ate, un­au­thor­ised in­ter­fer­ence;
g.
any oth­er ma­li­cious acts and find­ings that im­pair or may im­pair se­cur­ity.

3 The hold­er of an op­er­at­ing li­cence must sub­mit a re­port on every ma­li­cious act or find­ing to EN­SI with­in 30 days. The re­port must be clas­si­fied.

48 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

49 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 31 May 2024, with ef­fect from 1 Ju­ly 2024 (AS 2024 280).

Art. 40 Modifications that require a permit

1 The fol­low­ing modi­fic­a­tions are gen­er­ally re­garded as modi­fic­a­tions that do not de­vi­ate sig­ni­fic­antly from the re­spect­ive li­cence but which re­quire a per­mit in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 65, para­graph 3 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act:

a.
modi­fic­a­tions to struc­tures, sys­tems and com­pon­ents sub­ject to safety or se­cur­ity clas­si­fic­a­tion and to equip­ment rel­ev­ant to safety or se­cur­ity, provid­ing the ex­ist­ing safety or se­cur­ity func­tions are main­tained or im­proved;
b.
the fol­low­ing modi­fic­a­tions to the re­act­or core:
1.
modi­fic­a­tions to the load­ing of the re­act­or core with fuel ele­ments as part of the re­fuel­ling pro­ced­ure,
2.
modi­fic­a­tions to and re­pair of fuel ele­ments and con­trol rods,
3.
in­crease of per­miss­ible burn-up,
4.
modi­fic­a­tion to safety as­sess­ment meth­ods,
5.
modi­fic­a­tion of safety cri­ter­ia,
6.
in­crease of the pro­por­tion of urani­um-plutoni­um-mixed-ox­ide fuel ele­ments in re­act­or core up to a max­im­um of 50 per­cent;
c.
changes in the con­tent of the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments:
1.
the power plant or op­er­at­ing reg­u­la­tions,
2.
the emer­gency pre­pared­ness reg­u­la­tions,
3.
the ra­di­ation pro­tec­tion reg­u­la­tions,
4.
the tech­nic­al spe­cific­a­tions,
5.
the reg­u­la­tions and in­struc­tions re­lat­ing to se­cur­ity.

2 To ob­tain the ne­ces­sary per­mit in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ters a and b, the li­cence hold­er must sub­mit all the doc­u­ment­a­tion ne­ces­sary for the as­sess­ment as afore­men­tioned in An­nex 4.

3 To ob­tain the ne­ces­sary per­mit in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ter c, the li­cence hold­er must sub­mit all the re­quired doc­u­ment­a­tion to­geth­er with an ex­plan­a­tion of the reas­on for the changes.

4 For modi­fic­a­tions of tech­nic­al spe­cific­a­tions, the li­cence hold­er must also ex­plain the meth­od and tech­nic­al cri­ter­ia that have been used for as­sess­ing the im­pacts of the modi­fic­a­tions on the safety of the in­stall­a­tion.

5 EN­SI shall reg­u­late the type, con­tent, present­a­tion and num­ber of re­quired ap­plic­a­tion doc­u­ments in guidelines.50

50 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 41 Documentation

1 The li­cence hold­er must up­date the or­gan­isa­tion­al and tech­nic­al doc­u­ments in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 3 throughout the en­tire peri­od of op­er­a­tion of the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion, up to its de­com­mis­sion­ing or clos­ure, and must ad­apt them to the cur­rent status of the in­stall­a­tion.

2 The li­cence hold­er must at all times trace­ably doc­u­ment the op­er­a­tion of the in­stall­a­tion on the basis of re­cords in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 3 and doc­u­ments de­scrib­ing func­tion tests and main­ten­ance op­er­a­tions.

3 All doc­u­ment­a­tion must be se­curely archived un­til com­ple­tion of the de­com­mis­sion­ing, or un­til clos­ure of the in­stall­a­tion or ex­piry of the spe­cified mon­it­or­ing peri­od.

4 The li­cence hold­er must hand over all doc­u­ment­a­tion to EN­SI after the in­stall­a­tion has been de­com­mis­sioned, or to the De­part­ment after clos­ure of the in­stall­a­tion or ex­piry of the mon­it­or­ing peri­od.51

5 EN­SI shall spe­cify the de­tailed re­quire­ments on doc­u­ment­a­tion and its archiv­ing in guidelines.52

51 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

52 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 42 Updating of plan or project concerning decommissioning and closure

1 Every ten years, the hold­er of an op­er­at­ing li­cence must re­view and up­date the plan for the de­com­mis­sion­ing of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion or, in the case of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory, the pro­ject for the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and the plan for clos­ure.

2 Up­dat­ing is also re­quired if:

a.
sig­ni­fic­ant changes have been made to the in­stall­a­tion;
b.
sig­ni­fic­ant re­quire­ments have been changed that re­late to de­com­mis­sion­ing, or the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and clos­ure of the in­stall­a­tion;
c.
sig­ni­fic­ant tech­no­lo­gic­al de­vel­op­ments make up­dat­ing ne­ces­sary.

Art. 43 Shutdown of a nuclear power plant

1 The hold­er of an op­er­at­ing li­cence for a nuc­le­ar power plant must shut down the in­stall­a­tion if one of the shut­down cri­ter­ia in the tech­nic­al spe­cific­a­tions or power plant reg­u­la­tions should be ful­filled.

2 The li­cence hold­er may only re­sume op­er­a­tion with a re­act­or out­put of more than 5 per­cent after the ne­ces­sary meas­ures have been taken.

Art. 44 Criteria for provisional taking out of service and backfitting of nuclear power plants 53

1 The hold­er of an op­er­at­ing li­cence must take the nuc­le­ar power plant out of ser­vice and back­fit it if one or more of the fol­low­ing tech­nic­al cri­ter­ia are ful­filled:

a.
ac­ci­dent ana­lyses in­dic­ate that core cool­ing in the event of an ac­ci­dent in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 para­graphs 2 and 3 can no longer be as­sured and a dose of 100 mSv will be ex­ceeded as a con­sequence;
b.
the in­teg­rity of the primary coolant sys­tem can no longer be as­sured;
c.
the in­teg­rity of the con­tain­ment can no longer be as­sured.

2 In the ana­lys­is un­der para­graph 1 let­ter a, ac­ci­dents with a fre­quency of more than 10-6 per year that are not triggered by nat­ur­al events and nat­ur­al events with a fre­quency of 10-4 per year must be taken in­to ac­count.

3 The De­part­ment spe­cifies the meth­od­o­logy and bound­ary con­di­tions gov­ern­ing the re­view of cri­ter­ia in an or­din­ance.

53 Amended by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

Section 5 Decommissioning

Art. 45 Project documentation

The or­gan­isa­tion re­quired to carry out de­com­mis­sion­ing must sub­mit the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments con­cern­ing the de­com­mis­sion­ing pro­ject:

a.
com­par­is­on of vari­ants for the dif­fer­ent stages, timetable for the de­com­mis­sion­ing op­er­a­tions and ex­pec­ted end status, in­clud­ing the reas­on for choice of vari­ant;
b.
de­scrip­tion of each step and re­quired fund­ing, i.e. de­term­in­a­tion of ra­di­olo­gic­al status of the in­stall­a­tion, dis­as­sembly, dis­mant­ling and de­con­tam­in­a­tion of in­stall­a­tions, de­con­tam­in­a­tion and de­moli­tion of build­ings;
c.
pro­ced­ure for sep­ar­at­ing ra­dio­act­ive from non-ra­dio­act­ive waste and man­age­ment of the ra­dio­act­ive waste;
d.
meas­ures to pro­tect per­son­nel against ra­di­ation and to pre­vent the re­lease of ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances in­to the en­vir­on­ment;
e.
se­cur­ity meas­ures;
f.
ac­ci­dent ana­lys­is, spe­cific­ally the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of po­ten­tial ac­ci­dents dur­ing de­com­mis­sion­ing, as­sess­ment of their fre­quency and ra­di­olo­gic­al im­pacts, as well as counter-meas­ures and any ne­ces­sary emer­gency pre­pared­ness meas­ures;
g.
evid­ence of avail­ab­il­ity of the re­quired num­ber of suit­able and qual­i­fied per­son­nel for ex­ecut­ing and su­per­vising de­com­mis­sion­ing op­er­a­tions, and of a suit­able or­gan­isa­tion­al struc­ture with clear al­loc­a­tion of re­spons­ib­il­it­ies;
h.
qual­ity man­age­ment pro­gramme;
i.
en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact re­port;
j.
sum­mary of all costs arising from the de­com­mis­sion­ing of the in­stall­a­tion, in­clud­ing those for the man­age­ment of ra­dio­act­ive and non-ra­dio­act­ive waste, and the se­cur­ing of the ne­ces­sary fin­an­cing.

Art. 46 Decommissioning order

The de­com­mis­sion­ing or­der spe­cifies the fol­low­ing de­tails:

a.
scope of de­com­mis­sion­ing activ­it­ies;
b.
the vari­ous de­com­mis­sion­ing stages, in par­tic­u­lar the dur­a­tion of any safe en­clos­ure of the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion;
c.
lim­its for the dis­charge of ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances in­to the en­vir­on­ment;
d.
mon­it­or­ing of im­mis­sions of ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances and of dir­ect ra­di­ation;
e.
or­gan­isa­tion.

Art. 47 Permits

The de­com­mis­sion­ing or­der sets forth the need for a per­mit es­pe­cially for the fol­low­ing activ­it­ies:

a.54
pro­ced­ure for the clear­ance meas­ure­ment of res­ult­ing ma­ter­i­als;
b.
con­di­tion­ing of res­ult­ing ra­dio­act­ive waste;
c.55
de­moli­tion of build­ings after their de­con­tam­in­a­tion and clear­ance meas­ure­ment;
d.
non-nuc­le­ar use of in­stall­a­tions after com­ple­tion of the de­com­mis­sion­ing pro­cess;
e.
re­peal of se­cur­ity meas­ures;
f.
in the case of de­com­mis­sion­ing of nuc­le­ar power plants, dis­as­sembly of the re­act­or ves­sel and its sur­round­ing build­ing ele­ments.

54 Amended by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

55 Amended by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

Art. 48 Reporting procedure for decommissioning 56

The or­gan­isa­tion re­quired to carry out de­com­mis­sion­ing must re­port to EN­SI once a year on the status of de­com­mis­sion­ing of the in­stall­a­tion, and must also sub­mit a fi­nal re­port after com­ple­tion of the pro­cess.

56 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 49 Reporting obligations

Art­icles 38 and 39 ap­ply by ana­logy to re­port­ing ob­lig­a­tions re­lat­ing to de­com­mis­sion­ing.

Chapter 5 Radioactive Waste

Section 1 General

Art. 50 Minimisation of radioactive waste

Nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions must be de­signed, con­struc­ted and op­er­ated in such a man­ner as to en­sure that the low­est pos­sible quant­ity of ra­dio­act­ive waste in terms of activ­ity and volume arises from their op­er­a­tion and de­com­mis­sion­ing. For this pur­pose the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments ap­ply in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
for the con­struc­tion of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions, ma­ter­i­als must be chosen that en­sure that the form­a­tion of ac­tiv­a­tion products is min­im­al;
b.
for the op­er­a­tion of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions, the use of con­sum­ables in the con­trolled zone must be kept to a min­im­um;
c.
ma­ter­i­als that have been con­tam­in­ated with ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances must be de­con­tam­in­ated wherever pos­sible and ap­pro­pri­ate.

Art. 51 Categories of radioactive waste

For the pur­pose of man­age­ment and dis­pos­al, ra­dio­act­ive waste is clas­si­fied in the fol­low­ing cat­egor­ies:

a.
high level ra­dio­act­ive waste:
1.
spent fuel which is no longer used,
2.
vit­ri­fied fis­sion product solu­tions res­ult­ing from the re­pro­cessing of spent fuel;
b.
al­phat­ox­ic waste: waste in which the con­tent of al­pha emit­ters ex­ceeds 20,000 becquer­els per gram of con­di­tioned waste;
c.
low and in­ter­me­di­ate level waste: all oth­er ra­dio­act­ive waste.

Art. 51a Material composition of radioactive waste 57

Ra­dio­act­ive waste may con­tain chem­ic­ally tox­ic and chem­ic­ally re­act­ive sub­stances, provided this is com­pat­ible with safe dis­pos­al.

57 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 31 May 2024, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2024 (AS 2024 280).

Art. 51abis Exceptions to the obligation to manage and dispose of nuclear waste 58

The fol­low­ing are not sub­ject to the ob­lig­a­tion to man­age and dis­pose of nuc­le­ar waste in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 31 NEA:

a.
low-level ra­dio­act­ive waste that may be dis­charged in­to the en­vir­on­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 111–116 RPO59;
b.
ra­dio­act­ive waste that may be placed in de­cay stor­age in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 117 RPO.

58 Ori­gin­ally Art. 51a. In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

59 SR 814.501

Art. 52 Waste management programme

1 Those re­quired to man­age ra­dio­act­ive waste must in­clude the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion in the waste man­age­ment pro­gramme:

a.
ori­gin, type and quant­ity of ra­dio­act­ive waste;
b.
the re­quired deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies, in­clud­ing their design concept;
c.
al­loc­a­tion of ra­dio­act­ive waste to the deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies;
d.
plan for the real­isa­tion of the deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­or­ies;
e.
dur­a­tion and re­quired ca­pa­city of cent­ral and de­cent­ral in­ter­im stor­age;
f.
fin­an­cial plan for the waste man­age­ment op­er­a­tions through to de­com­mis­sion­ing of the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions, in­clud­ing de­tails con­cern­ing:
1.
the activ­it­ies to be car­ried out,
2.
the as­so­ci­ated costs,
3.
the type of fin­an­cing;
g.
the in­form­a­tion concept.

2 The waste man­age­ment pro­gramme must be up­dated every five years.

3 EN­SI and the Fed­er­al Of­fice are re­spons­ible for re­view­ing and mon­it­or­ing com­pli­ance with the waste man­age­ment pro­gramme.60

60 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Section 2 Clearance Measurement and Conditioning

Art. 53 Clearance measurement of materials

1 Any per­son in­tend­ing to re­move ma­ter­i­als from con­trolled zones of a nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion must carry out a clear­ance meas­ure­ment with ap­pro­pri­ate qual­ity as­sur­ance and doc­u­ment it.61

2 Quant­it­ies of ma­ter­i­al weigh­ing more than 1,000 kilo­grams or with a volume great­er than a cu­bic metre must be re­por­ted to EN­SI at least 10 days pri­or to re­mov­al from the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion, and the re­quired doc­u­ment­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted.62

3 EN­SI shall spe­cify the de­tailed re­quire­ments on clear­ance meas­ure­ment and re­port­ing in guidelines.63

61 Amended by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

62 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

63 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 54 Conditioning

1 Ra­dio­act­ive waste must be con­di­tioned as quickly as pos­sible. The col­lec­tion of non-con­di­tioned waste for the pur­pose of car­ry­ing out peri­od­ic­al con­di­tion­ing cam­paigns is per­mit­ted.

2 Con­di­tioned waste pack­ages must be suit­able for trans­port, stor­age and dis­pos­al.

3 Each waste pack­age must be la­belled and provided with doc­u­ment­a­tion that de­scribes pro­duc­tion, com­pos­i­tion and prop­er­ties. This doc­u­ment­a­tion must be re­tained and handed over to the com­pany that is to carry out the fur­ther waste man­age­ment op­er­a­tions.

4 For the pro­duc­tion of a con­di­tioned waste pack­age a type or in­di­vidu­al per­mit is­sued by EN­SI is ne­ces­sary.64

5 Ap­plic­a­tions must be ac­com­pan­ied by all doc­u­ments that are ne­ces­sary for as­sess­ment pur­poses, and these must provide in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing in par­tic­u­lar to:

a.
the con­di­tion­ing pro­ced­ure;
b.
the waste pack­age and its com­pon­ents;
c.
the qual­ity as­sur­ance;
d.
the doc­u­ment­a­tion.

6 EN­SI shall spe­cify the de­tailed re­quire­ments on con­di­tion­ing and ap­plic­a­tion doc­u­ments in guidelines.65

64 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

65 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Section 3 Handling Radioactive Waste

Art. 55 Competences

1 The Fed­er­al Of­fice is the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity for:

a.
is­su­ing li­cences for hand­ling ra­dio­act­ive waste;
b.
ap­prov­ing the agree­ment con­cern­ing the re­turn of ra­dio­act­ive waste in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 34 para­graph 3 let­ter d and para­graph 4 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act.
2 The spe­cial com­pet­ence un­der Art­icle 11 para­graph 2 let­ter f RPO66 is re­served.67

3 The De­part­ment is re­spons­ible for con­clud­ing the agree­ment un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 34 para­graph 3 let­ter a NEA in the case of the ex­port of low and in­ter­me­di­ate-level waste for con­di­tion­ing pur­poses.68

66 SR 814.501

67 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 7 Dec. 2018, in force since 1 Feb. 2019 (AS 2019 183).

68 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 29 Nov. 2023, in force since 1 Jan. 2024 (AS 2023 765).

Art. 56 Application and related documentation

1 Ap­plic­a­tions for a li­cence for the trans­port and for the im­port, ex­port or trans­it of ra­dio­act­ive waste must be sub­mit­ted jointly by the con­signor, the con­sign­ee, the car­ri­er and the trans­port or­gan­iser.

2 The doc­u­ment­a­tion must provide the ne­ces­sary in­form­a­tion for as­sess­ing the ap­plic­a­tion, in­clud­ing in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
the com­pos­i­tion and prop­er­ties of the ra­dio­act­ive waste;
b.
the per­son re­spons­ible for waste man­age­ment, con­signor and con­sign­ee;
c.
the place of ori­gin and des­tin­a­tion;
d.
the mode of trans­port, in par­tic­u­lar evid­ence of com­pli­ance with re­quire­ments on the car­riage of dan­ger­ous goods.

Art. 57 Preliminary clarifications, validity, retention of documents and reporting obligation

Art­icles 16, 18, 20 and 21 ap­ply by ana­logy with re­spect to the hand­ling of ra­dio­act­ive waste.

Section 4 Geological Investigations

Art. 58 Application documents

Ap­plic­a­tions for a li­cence for geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions must be ac­com­pan­ied by the fol­low­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion:

a.
an in­vest­ig­a­tion pro­gramme;
b.
a geo­lo­gic­al re­port;
c.
a re­port on the po­ten­tial im­pacts of the in­vest­ig­a­tions on the geo­lo­gic­al con­di­tions and the en­vir­on­ment;
d.
maps and plans;
e.
an in­dic­a­tion of de­sired valid­ity of the li­cence.

Art. 59 Investigation programme

The in­vest­ig­a­tion pro­gramme must con­tain de­tails con­cern­ing:

a.
the ob­ject­ives of the in­vest­ig­a­tions;
b.
the an­ti­cip­ated scope of the in­vest­ig­a­tions;
c.
the start­ing date and ex­pec­ted dur­a­tion of the in­vest­ig­a­tions.

Art. 60 Geological report

The geo­lo­gic­al re­port must con­tain the fol­low­ing de­tails:

a.
a de­scrip­tion of the geo­logy of the re­gion con­cerned;
b.
a sum­mary of geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions already car­ried out in the re­gion con­cerned and ac­cess­ible to the ap­plic­ant, to­geth­er with a sum­mary of the find­ings ob­tained from such in­vest­ig­a­tions;
c.
a de­scrip­tion of the geo­lo­gic­al and hy­dro-geo­lo­gic­al factors that are de­cis­ive for the choice of the re­gion con­cerned.

Art. 61 Exemptions from licensing obligation

1 The fol­low­ing geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions do not re­quire a li­cence:

a.
seis­mic and oth­er geo­phys­ic­al meas­ure­ments, e.g. gra­vi­met­ric, geo­elec­tric and elec­tro­mag­net­ic re­cord­ings;
b.
geo­lo­gic­al stud­ies on the sur­face and in ex­ist­ing un­der­ground struc­tures, in­clud­ing ex­trac­tion of rock samples;
c.
col­lec­tion of ground­wa­ter and well-wa­ter samples, meas­ure­ments of wells, shal­low piezo­met­ric meas­ure­ments and mark­ing tests;
d.
meas­ure­ments of ground gases.

2 The above ex­emp­tions re­main sub­ject to any au­thor­isa­tions that may be re­quired for the activ­it­ies con­cerned in ac­cord­ance with can­ton­al or fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion.

Section 5 Special Provisions for Deep Geological Repositories

Art. 62 Application for a general licence

In ad­di­tion to the ap­plic­a­tion doc­u­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 23, ap­plic­ants for a gen­er­al li­cence for a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory must also sub­mit a re­port con­tain­ing the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.
a com­par­is­on of avail­able op­tions from the point of view of safety of the planned re­pos­it­ory;
b.
an eval­u­ation of the de­cis­ive prop­er­ties for the se­lec­tion of the site;
c.
the costs of the re­pos­it­ory.

Art. 63 Suitability criteria

The cri­ter­ia to be spe­cified in the gen­er­al li­cence in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 14 para­graph 1 let­ter f num­ber 1 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act re­late to:

a.
the ex­tent of suit­able host rock;
b.
the on-site hy­dro-geo­lo­gic­al con­di­tions;
c.
the age of deep ground­wa­ter.

Art. 64 Elements of a deep geological repository

A deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory com­prises a main in­stall­a­tion for the em­place­ment of the ra­dio­act­ive waste, a pi­lot in­stall­a­tion and test areas.

Art. 65 Test areas

1 In test areas, the prop­er­ties of the host rock of rel­ev­ance to safety must be ex­amined in depth in or­der to con­firm the safety.

2 Be­fore a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory may be put in­to op­er­a­tion, the tech­no­lo­gies of rel­ev­ance to safety must be tested and their func­tion­al ca­pa­city must be as­cer­tained. This con­cerns in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
the em­place­ment of back­fill ma­ter­i­al;
b.
the re­mov­al of back­fill ma­ter­i­al for the pur­pose of re­cov­ery of waste pack­ages;
c.
the meth­od of re­cov­ery of waste pack­ages.

3 Dur­ing the op­er­a­tion of the re­pos­it­ory, the seal­ing of cav­erns and gal­ler­ies must be tested and its func­tion­al ca­pa­city must be as­cer­tained.

Art. 66 Pilot installation

1 In the pi­lot in­stall­a­tion, the be­ha­viour of waste, back­fill ma­ter­i­al and host rock must be mon­itored un­til the ex­piry of the mon­it­or­ing peri­od. Dur­ing mon­it­or­ing, data must be col­lec­ted in or­der to con­firm long-term safety with a view to clos­ure.

2 The ob­tained find­ings must be trans­fer­able to the pro­cesses go­ing on in the main sec­tion. They form the basis for the de­cision on the clos­ure of the re­pos­it­ory.

3 The fol­low­ing prin­ciples must be ob­served in con­nec­tion with the design of the pi­lot sec­tion:

a.
The geo­lo­gic­al and hy­dro-geo­lo­gic­al con­di­tions must be com­par­able to those of the main sec­tion.
b.
The pi­lot sec­tion must be spa­tially and hy­draul­ic­ally sep­ar­ated from the main sec­tion.
c.
The con­struc­tion of the pi­lot sec­tion and the em­place­ment pro­ced­ure of waste and back­fill ma­ter­i­al must cor­res­pond to those of the main sec­tion.
d.
The pi­lot sec­tion must con­tain a small but rep­res­ent­at­ive quant­ity of waste.

Art. 67 Backfilling

1 The own­er of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory must back­fill the stor­age cav­erns and gal­ler­ies after the waste pack­ages have been em­placed.

2 Back­filling must be car­ried out in such a man­ner that long-term safety is as­sured and the re­cov­ery of the waste is pos­sible without un­due ef­fort.

Art. 68 Monitoring period

1 The own­er of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory must de­scribe in an up-dated pro­ject the planned meas­ures for mon­it­or­ing the re­pos­it­ory after em­place­ment of the waste has been com­pleted. He must also pro­pose a dur­a­tion for the mon­it­or­ing peri­od.

2 The De­part­ment or­ders the start of the mon­it­or­ing peri­od and spe­cifies its dur­a­tion. It may also ex­tend this peri­od as re­quired.

Art. 69 Closure

1 When clos­ing a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory, its own­er must back­fill all ex­cav­a­tions of the re­pos­it­ory and seal the sec­tions rel­ev­ant for long-term safety and se­cur­ity.

2 The clos­ure pro­ject must de­scribe the fol­low­ing as­pects in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
the back­filling and seal­ing of the ac­cesses to the dis­pos­al areas;
b.
the trans­form­a­tion of the pi­lot sec­tion in­to a state suit­able for long-term safety;
c.
the back­filling and seal­ing of the ac­cesses to the re­pos­it­ory;
d.
the as­sur­ance of long-term safety.

3 When clos­ing the re­pos­it­ory, the own­er must in par­tic­u­lar en­sure:

a.
that no in­ad­miss­ible re­lease of ra­di­o­nuc­lides takes place via the back­filled ac­cesses;
b.
that the sep­ar­a­tion of wa­ter-con­duct­ing rock lay­ers ex­ist­ing pri­or to the con­struc­tion of the deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory is re­stored over the long-term;
c.
that the mark­ing of the deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory is per­man­ent.

Art. 70 Protection zone

1 The pro­tec­tion zone of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory must be defined on the basis of the re­port on long-term safety sub­mit­ted with the li­cence ap­plic­a­tion. The pro­tec­tion zone must en­com­pass:

a.
all parts of the re­pos­it­ory, in­clud­ing ac­cesses;
b.
the rock volumes that provide the hy­draul­ic con­tain­ment of the re­pos­it­ory;
c.
the rock volumes that sig­ni­fic­antly con­trib­ute to the re­ten­tion of ra­di­o­nuc­lides that could be re­leased from the re­pos­it­ory over the course of time.

2 After is­su­ing the gen­er­al li­cence, the Fed­er­al Of­fice shall re­quest the rel­ev­ant land re­gistry to add the fol­low­ing note to the entries for the plots of land situ­ated with­in the peri­met­er of the pro­tec­tion zone: «Pro­vi­sion­al pro­tec­tion zone of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory». After is­su­ing the op­er­at­ing li­cence, the Fed­er­al Of­fice shall re­quest the rel­ev­ant land re­gistry to add the note, «Defin­it­ive pro­tec­tion zone for a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory».

3 The de­cision on the re­peal of a pro­vi­sion­al or defin­it­ive pro­tec­tion zone is made by the De­part­ment. In the event of such a de­cision, the Fed­er­al Of­fice shall re­quest the rel­ev­ant land re­gistry to de­lete the cor­res­pond­ing note.

4 The De­part­ment shall is­sue li­cences for activ­it­ies that af­fect the pro­tec­tion zone. A li­cence may only be is­sued if the activ­it­ies con­cerned do not im­pair the long-term safety of the deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory.

Art. 71 Documentation

1 The own­er of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory must com­pile doc­u­ment­a­tion that is suit­able for se­cur­ing in­form­a­tion about the re­pos­it­ory over the long term.

2 This doc­u­ment­a­tion must con­tain the fol­low­ing:

a.
the loc­a­tion and ex­tent of un­der­ground struc­tures;
b.
an in­vent­ory of dis­posed ra­dio­act­ive waste by type, quant­ity and dis­pos­al area;
c.
the design of safety bar­ri­ers, in­clud­ing seal­ing of ac­cesses;
d.
the basis for and find­ings of the defin­it­ive ana­lys­is of long-term safety.

3 The own­er must hand over all doc­u­ment­a­tion to the De­part­ment after clos­ure or on ex­piry of the ad­di­tion­al mon­it­or­ing peri­od.

Art. 72 Use of geological data

1 The find­ings ob­tained from geo­lo­gic­al in­vest­ig­a­tions or dur­ing the con­struc­tion of a deep geo­lo­gic­al re­pos­it­ory must be passed on to the Swiss Fed­er­al Geo­lo­gic­al In­form­a­tion Centre.

2 The lat­ter and the per­son who is re­quired to sup­ply the in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 con­trac­tu­ally reg­u­late the con­di­tions of ac­cess to and use of said data.

Chapter 6 Procedures, Information and Promotion

Art. 73 Review by ENSI 69

EN­SI shall re­view ap­plic­a­tions sub­mit­ted for li­cences and ap­provals in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 49 to 63 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act.

69 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 74 Deadlines for dealing with applications

The fol­low­ing dead­lines gen­er­ally ap­ply for deal­ing with ap­plic­a­tions for li­cences and ap­provals in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 49 to 63 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act:

a.
from date of re­ceipt of com­plete ap­plic­a­tion un­til it is passed on to the can­tons and fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies con­cerned, or un­til pub­lic­a­tion and present­a­tion for pub­lic con­sulta­tion: one month;
b.
from com­ple­tion of in­struc­tion pro­ced­ure un­til a de­cision is taken: six months.

Art. 75 Procedure for permits and for type or individual approvals

1 The fol­low­ing are not pub­lished or presen­ted for pub­lic con­sulta­tion:

a.
ap­plic­a­tions for per­mits in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 26, 29, 40 and 47 of this Or­din­ance, and Art­icle 36, para­graph 1 let­ter b, Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act;
b.
ap­plic­a­tions for type or in­di­vidu­al ap­provals in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 54, para­graph 4.

2 EN­SI shall if ap­plic­able trans­mit the ap­plic­a­tion to the spe­cial­ist de­part­ments of the Con­fed­er­a­tion for re­view. For this it shall set an ap­pro­pri­ate dead­line.70

3 The pre­con­di­tion for grant­ing a per­mit is that the re­quire­ments of an un­der­ly­ing li­cence or or­der con­tin­ue to be met and that the con­di­tions spe­cified in the li­cence or or­der are taken in­to ac­count.

471

70 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

71 Re­pealed by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 76 Obligation to provide information about special events and findings relating to nuclear safety 72

1 EN­SI shall no­ti­fy the gen­er­al pub­lic without delay of any spe­cial events and find­ings in nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions that:

a.
rep­res­ent a haz­ard to the in­stall­a­tion or its per­son­nel, or have sig­ni­fic­ant ra­di­olo­gic­al im­pacts on the en­vir­on­ment (events and find­ings of cat­egory 3 or great­er of the INES scale, ac­cord­ing to An­nex 6);
b.
are of sig­ni­fic­ance in terms of safety, but have no or only a neg­li­gible ra­di­olo­gic­al im­pact on the en­vir­on­ment (events and find­ings of cat­egory 2 or great­er of the INES scale, ac­cord­ing to An­nex 6).

2 In the case of spe­cial events and find­ings of pub­lic in­terest that are not covered by para­graph 1 above, EN­SI shall ar­range for the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion to the pub­lic.

72 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Art. 77 Promotion of research, education and training

1 With­in the scope of ap­proved cred­its, the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies shall sup­port pro­jects in the area of ap­plied re­search, edu­ca­tion­al activ­it­ies and the train­ing of per­son­nel in the areas of safety and se­cur­ity of nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions and nuc­le­ar waste man­age­ment.

2 Their sup­port shall take the form of fin­an­cial aid or the as­sist­ance provided by per­son­nel from the Fed­er­al Of­fice or EN­SI.73

73 Amended by An­nex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFed­er­al Nuc­le­ar Safety In­spect­or­ate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Chapter 7 Criminal Provisions and Final Provisions

Art. 78 Criminal provision

Any per­son who wil­fully or neg­li­gently fails to com­ply with the ob­lig­a­tion to keep re­cords in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 20, 27 para­graph 2 and 41 para­graph 3 shall be li­able to the pen­al­ties in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 93 of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act.

Art. 79 Amendments to Annexes 2 and 6

The De­part­ment may amend An­nexes 2 and 6 on the basis of de­cisions taken by ex­port con­trol au­thor­it­ies sup­por­ted by Switzer­land and re­com­mend­a­tions of the In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­ergy Agency.

Art. 80 Repeal of current legislation

The fol­low­ing Or­din­ances are re­pealed:

1.
Or­din­ance of 11 Ju­ly 197974on the Gen­er­al Li­cens­ing Pro­ced­ure for Nuc­le­ar In­stall­a­tions with Site Li­cence;
2.
Or­din­ance of 27 Novem­ber 198975on Pre­par­at­ory Meas­ures;
3.
Atom­ic En­ergy Or­din­ance of 18 Janu­ary 198476;
4.
Or­din­ance of 14 March 198377on the Su­per­vi­sion of Nuc­le­ar In­stall­a­tions.

Art. 81 Amendments to current legislation

Amend­ments to cur­rent le­gis­la­tion are dealt with in An­nex 7.

Art. 82 Transitional provision

For the spe­cific­a­tion of the scope of back­fit­ting activ­it­ies in nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions that were com­mis­sioned pri­or to the en­act­ment of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act, the re­quire­ments and prin­ciples laid down in Art­icles 7 to 12 must be met in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 22 para­graph 2 let­ter g of the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Act.

Art. 82a Transitional provision to the Amendment of 26 April 2017 78

EN­SI may on re­quest ex­tend the dead­line for sub­mis­sion of the PSR with proof of safety for long-term op­er­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 34 para­graph 4 in con­junc­tion with Art­icle 34 para­graph 3 un­til the end of 2019 at the latest.

78 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 26 April 2017, in force since 1 June 2017 (AS 2017 2829).

Art. 83 Commencement

This Or­din­ance comes in­to force on 1 Feb­ru­ary 2005.

Annex 1 79

79 Revised by Annex 8 No I of the Goods Control Ordinance of 3 June 2016 (AS 2016 2195) and Annex 11 No 4 of the Radiological Protection Ordinance of 26 April 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 4261).

Definitions

Annex 2 81

81 Revised in accordance with Annex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFederal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Principles for the security of nuclear installations, nuclear materials and radioactive waste

1. Technical security of nuclear installations

2. Security of nuclear materials and radioactive waste

Categorisation of nuclear materials and radioactive waste

Category I

Category II

Category III

Annex 3 82

82 Revised in accordance with Annex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFederal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (AS 2008 5747) and Annex 11 No 4 of the Radiological Protection Ordinance of 26 April 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 4261).

Operational documentation

1. Organisational documents

2. Technical documents

3. Operational records

Annex 4

Documentation for licences and permits, safety classification

Key to table in Section 1

1. Documents by type of application and by area

2. Documents by area

3. Safety classification

3.1 Safety classes (SC)

3.2 Earthquake classes (EC)

3.3 Nuclear building classes (BC)

Annex 5 83

83 Amended by Annex No 12 of the O of 12 Nov. 2008 on the SwissFederal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, in force since 1 Jan. 2009 (AS 2008 5747).

Periodical reporting

Annex 6 84

84 Amended by Annex 11 No 4 of the Radiological Protection Ordinance of 26 April 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 4261). The correction of 16 October 2019 concerns the French text only (AS 2019 3441).

Reporting on events and findings relating to safety

A. Event report and report on follow-up measures

B. Categorisation of events and findings

1. Classification:

2. Classification on the IAEA’s International Nuclear Event Scale (INES)

3. Assessment of public interest

Annex 7

Amendments to current legislation

85

85 The amendments may be consulted under AS 2005601.