ASN Report 2017

130 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 04  - Regulation of nuclear activities and exposure to ionising radiation 17th August 2015 (TECV Act) expanded the scope of ASN regulation to the suppliers, contractors and subcontractors of licensees, including for activities performed outside BNIs. In its regulatory duties, ASN is required to look at the equipment and hardware in the installations, the individuals in charge of operating it, the working methods and the organisation, from the start of the design process up to decommissioning. It reviews the steps taken concerning nuclear safety and the monitoring and limitation of the doses received by the individuals working in the facilities, and the waste management, effluents discharge monitoring and environmental protection procedures. Regulation of pressure equipment Numerous systems in nuclear facilities contain or carry pressurised fluids. In this respect they are subject to the regulations applicable to pressure equipment, which include NPE (see chapter 3, point 3.6). The Environment Code states that ASN is the administrative Authority with competence for issuing licensing decisions and checking the in-service monitoring of the pressure equipment installed within the perimeter of a BNI. Pressure equipment operation is regulated. This regulation in particular applies to the in-service surveillance programmes, non-destructive testing, maintenance work, disposition of nonconformities affecting these systems and periodic post- maintenance testing. ASN also assesses the regulatory conformity of the most important new nuclear pressure equipment items. It approves and monitors the organisations responsible for assessing the conformity of the other nuclear pressure equipment. Regulation and monitoring of the transport of radioactive substances Transport comprises all operations and conditions associated with movements of radioactive substances, such as packaging design, manufacture, maintenance and repair, as well as the preparation, shipment, loading, carriage, including storage in transit, unloading and receipt at the final destination of the radioactive substance consignments and packages (see chapter 11). The safety of the transport of radioactive substances is based on three successive barriers: ཛྷ ཛྷ primarily, the robustness of the packages; ཛྷ ཛྷ the reliability of the transport operations; ཛྷ ཛྷ an efficient emergency response in the event of an accident. Regulation and monitoring of activities comprising a risk of exposure to ionising radiation In France, ASN fulfils the role by drafting and monitoring technical regulations concerning radiation protection (see chapter 3, point 1). The scope of ASN’s regulatory role in radiation protection covers all the activities that use ionising radiation. ASN exercises this duty, where applicable, jointly with other State services such as the Labour Inspectorate, the Inspectorate for Installations Classified for Protection of the Environment, the departments of the Ministry of Health and the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (ANSM). This action directly concerns either the users of ionising radiation sources, or organisations approved to carry out technical inspections on these users. The methods of regulating the radiation protection players are presented in Table 1. They will change with the publication of the decrees transposing European Directive 2013/59/ Euratom of 5th December 2013 setting the Basic Standards for Health Protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation, scheduled for early 2018. Regulating the application of Labour Law in the nuclear power plants ASN carries out labour inspectorate duties in the 58 reactors in operation (spread around the 19 nuclear power plants), the eight reactors undergoing decommissioning and the EPR reactor under construction at Flamanville. The regulation of safety, radiation protection and labour inspection very often covers common topics, such as worksite organisation or the conditions of use of outside contractors (see chapter 12). The ASN labour inspectors have four essential duties: ཛྷ ཛྷ checking application of all aspects of labour legislation (health, occupational safety and working conditions, occupational accident inquiries, quality of employment, collective labour relations); ཛྷ ཛྷ advising and informing the employers, employees and personnel representatives about their rights, duties and labour legislation; ཛྷ ཛྷ informing the administration of changes in the working environment and any shortcomings in the legislation; ཛྷ ཛྷ facilitating conciliation between the parties. ASN inspection at the Chooz NPP, March 2017.

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