Weather and climate intelligence will help safeguard nuclear safety thanks to a newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Met Office and the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).
The new agreement formalises and enhances a long-standing existing relationship between the two organisations and represents an ongoing commitment to ensure innovative weather and climate science can be used to maximum public benefit across the nuclear sector in the UK.
Met Office Business Manager for Energy Simon Marshall said: “Working with the ONR is a crucial pillar in our work with the energy sector, ensuring the latest science can both enhance resilience but also improve efficiencies across the UK’s energy network.
“Our weather and climate intelligence will help ONR access and apply the latest science on weather, climate and external hazards within its regulatory activities, while ONR’s expertise will help us better understand how this information is interpreted and used to support nuclear safety.”
ONR Principal Inspector for Nuclear Safety, Aidan Parkes, said: “This MOU strengthens the vital link between weather science and nuclear safety, giving us the timely, high-quality meteorological evidence we need to protect the public and keep the UK's nuclear sites resilient to extreme weather and changing climate conditions.”
The agreement formalises collaboration on climate science, but allows scope to extend to additional topics like extreme weather, sea level rise and even the influence of space weather.
Training and secondment opportunities will also be explored between the two organisations, ensuring expertise can be shared and further enhance nuclear safety and security in the coming years.
The Met Office works extensively across the energy sector to support energy security and provide forecasts, data and consultancy to help customers address the opportunities and challenges facing the sector globally.
