ASN Report 2017

240 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 08  - Regional overview of nuclear safety and radiation protection ASN noted shortcomings in the control and monitoring of handling equipment, which reveal reduced rigour in the application of the instructions. These shortcomings led to 2 significant events for safety involving the dropping of loads. Checks of the internal authorisation system revealed deficiencies in taking into account the recommendations formulated by the licensee’s experts in the safety analyses of the modification authorisation files. ASN also observed weaknesses in the use of the site’s organisational and human factors expertise for the analysis, implementation or monitoring of the site’s reorganisation projects. ASN performed several targeted inspections in 2017 – some unannounced – to check the conformity of the organisation with the modification authorised on 12th October 2016. Carried out on a sampling basis, these inspections revealed no reduction in the level of safety of the organisation. The analysis of three significant events for safety which revealed malfunctions in Areva NC’s integrated management system, highlighted the need to reinforce the organisations in place with regard to the capacity to analyse the safety issues associated with degraded operating situations, the monitoring of outside contractors and more generally, a questioning attitude with respect to the conditions of performance of the operating and decommissioning operations. Areva NC’s organisation of radiation protection is satisfactory on the whole. The licensee must nevertheless remain particularly attentive to the conditions of access to prohibited areas. During 2017, Areva NC continued the UP2-400 plant decommissioning operations authorised by the decrees published in November 2013 for BNIs 33, 38 and 47 and in July 2009 for BNI 80. Areva NC has finished retrieving the fissile material from room 107 of the MAPu facility and the waste from dissolver 222-51 in the HADE facility. Areva NC has implemented an action plan to retrieve the residual materials from the compartments of the settling tanks of the STE2 facility (BNI 38) and started the complementary analyses of the ÉLAN IIB facility (BNI 47) civil engineering in order to consolidate the installation decommissioning scenario. Lastly, Areva NC has initiated an action plan to redefine the overall decommissioning scenario of the HAO South facility (BNI 80). ASN notes disparities in the progress of the decommissioning projects for BNIs 33, 38, 47 and 80, with some that could fail to meet the regulatory deadline specified in the decommissioning decrees. Areva NC must improve the safety culture of outside contractors and of the Areva NC personnel responsible for managing the decommissioning operations. It must also improve the methods of monitoring outside contractors and assess its monitoring actions. Alongside this, ASN has continued the examination of the complete decommissioning applications for BNIs 33 and 38 submitted by Areva NC in July  2015, and of the periodic safety reviews of BNIs 33, 38 and 47. For the retrieval and packaging of legacy waste, which has major safety implications, ASN notes that Areva NC has continued to produce CSD-U packages for packaging the fission products from the UNGG (Naturel Uranium - Graphite-Gas) fuels, but without achieving the production target for 2017. During an inspection in July 2016, ASN found that Areva NC had not actually begun to recover the waste stored in silo 130. In view of the justifications provided by Areva NC concerning the technical difficulties encountered and considering that the operations completion deadline of 31st December 2023 was not called into question, ASN – through ASN resolution 2017-DC-0612 of 26th October 2017 – pushed back the date of start of retrieval to 30th April 2018. ASN notes the progress of the work on the project to retrieve the waste from silo 130, particularly the installation of the process equipment to start retrieval of the solid waste, and the completion of construction of the unit for the retrieval and packaging of the waste from the HAO silo. Flamanville nuclear power plant ASN considers that the performance of the Flamanville NPP with regard to nuclear safety, radiation protection and environmental protection is, on the whole, in line with the general assessment of EDF plant performance. With regard to reactor operation and management, ASN considers that the site’s performance is satisfactory on the whole, but it must improve the traceability of the periodic tests analysis, particularly when restarting the reactor after an outage. With regard to the maintenance outage of reactor 2, the maintenance operations were well managed on the whole. The licensee must nevertheless improve monitoring of the operations, particularly those involving significant radiological risks. The site’s organisation for waste management during reactor outages must be improved. With regard to radiation protection, the organisation of the risk prevention department is satisfactory when the plant unit is in operation, but worksite dosimetric monitoring and worker monitoring during outages need to be improved. With regard to environmental protection, the site’s waste management organisation must be improved, more particularly in the management of waste in the storage areas and the tracking of the monitoring programme for the overall worksite assistance service. ASN considers that emergency situation management, particularly during the event affecting the reactor 1 alternator on 9th February 2017, is satisfactory. This event enabled the licensee and ASN to learn lessons from this type of emergency situation. Paluel nuclear power plant ASN considers that performance of the Paluel NPP with regard to nuclear safety and radiation protection is on the whole in line with the general assessment of EDF, and that its environmental protection performance is even more satisfactory. ASN notes that error-reduction practices concerning the preparation for, and retrospective verification of, operation and maintenance activities are still insufficiently deployed. ASN more specifically observes a large number of significant events linked to organisational and human factors. During 2017, the10-yearly outage of reactor 3 was carried out and involved major maintenance operations and system modifications with the particular aim of improving reactor NORMANDIE