Regulatory guides are issued by the NRC and provide guidance to power plants on how to implement certain portions of the regulations or interpret certain rules. . . .
They aren’t requirements, and plants can do things differently than as recommended by the NRC in the reg guides as long as they provide sufficient justification for the deviations.
There are a lot of reg guides.
There are some regulatory guides that are especially important to electrical engineers, like Regulatory Guide 1.75 which discusses separation criteria for electrical safety systems.
Or Regulatory Guide 1.180 which explains the NRC’s perspective on evaluating EMI/RFI issues in safety-related systems.
You can find a complete list of them by going to the NRC’s website here:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/reg-guides/
The reg guides are split across 10 different categories. You can learn a little bit about the history of each guide there, too. For electrical engineers working in the nuclear power industry, the most relevant will probably be located in section one, titled “Power Reactors.”
There are exceptions, of course.
There are even links to draft guides awaiting public comment. Take a peak and see what’s coming down the pipeline.