Kola NPP: Peer Review Assesses Nuclear Power Plant’s Safety

Октября 31, 2012

Peer Review, which began at Kola NPP on October 12 and was held in the line of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), completed its work.

More than 20 WANO experts: representatives of Ukraine, Pakistan, the USA, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary took part in the work of the Review. Jaroslav Vokurek, a Safety Inspector of CEZ Concern (Czech Republic), led the team of international experts – this was already his 16th Peer Review.

“Peer Review, first of all, has a task of transferring of the valuable experience of Kola nuclear power plant to other Rosenergoatom plants,” said J. Vokurek. “This is not an inspection survey, but a joint bilateral work, which focuses at shifting of the nuclear power plant’s activities to a new, higher quality level.”

The expert team assessed the state of Kola NPP in 11 fields of production activity: from the quality and reliability of operation to fire safety and emergency preparedness. It has carried out an analysis of the existing at the enterprise system of occupational health and safety of the staff. The most important consideration was given to interviews with the plant’s professionals, monitoring of their performance of duties and check of the plant’s equipment, buildings and facilities.

New in the work of the Peer Review was the participation of WANO Atlanta Centre representative, who examined the results of post-Fukushima measures implemented at Kola NPP.

The result of the work of experts was the report, which reflected the areas for the improvement of the plant’s operation. In addition, WANO representatives also marked strengths in the plant’s operation, which might be applied at other platforms of the world nuclear industry.

“Personally, I noted such striking examples of good utility practice as operation of LRW Processing Complex – a unique facility for the world nuclear industry,” resumed Jaroslav Vokurek, “as well as MKS device (an identification system of spent nuclear fuel burn up fraction), which first appeared at the platform of Kola NPP, and today it is successfully applied at nuclear power plants of WANO Moscow Centre, including in Czech Republic.”

A year and a half later, Kola NPP plans to hold the second Peer Review, where WANO experts will determine the effectiveness of the issued recommendations aimed at improving of the common level of safety of the nuclear power plant.