Hosted by the ENSI, Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate
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The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA) Working Group on Inspection Practices (WGIP) will sponsor the 11th International Workshop on Nuclear Regulatory Inspection Activities on Experience from the Inspection of aging and equipment qualification, Inspection of competency of operators, and the Inspection of licensee’s oversight of contractors. The workshop will be hosted by the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, ENSI in Baden, Switzerland on 21 - 24 May 2012.
The main purpose of the workshop is to provide a forum for the exchange of information on regulatory inspection activities. Participants will have the opportunity to meet with their counterparts from other countries and organisations to discuss current and future issues on the selected topics. They will develop conclusions and commendable practices regarding these issues and identify methods to help improve their own inspection programmes.
The CNRA believes that safety inspections are a major element in a regulatory authority’s efforts to ensure the safe operation of nuclear facilities. Considering the importance of these issues, the Committee established a special working group to address inspection practices. The purpose of WGIP is to facilitate the exchange of information and experience related to regulatory safety inspections between CNRA Member countries. This workshop, along with many other activities performed by WGIP, is directed towards this goal. The consensus from participants at previous Workshops, noted that the value of meeting with people from other inspection organisations was the most important achievement.
The Workshop will address the following three (3) main topics concerning experience from inspection activities:
A brief overview of the concepts and issues for each of the topics is provided in the following paragraphs. Actual issues to be discussed during the workshop will be generated by the organising committee members based on the responses submitted by participants with their registration forms. This will help ensure that issues considered most important by the workshop participants are covered during the group discussions.
As nuclear facilities age, the continued effectiveness of systems, structures and components (SSCs) affected by aging mechanisms and equipment qualification must be verified. Of note, based on recent operating experience, these SSCs include equipment with limited access, such as buried piping. This workshop topic is not a new issue, in Regulatory Aspects of Life Extension and Upgrading of NPPs - CNRA Special Issue's Meeting 2000 Report (NEA/CNRA/R(2001)1 and 2001)2) and in 1999 the WGIP addressed the issue in the topic of Regulatory Inspection Activities related to Older Operating NPPs, NEA/CNRA/R(1999)2. However, much has been learnt since then, more plants have sought the regulatory approval for extended operation and additional science and operating experience have been identified. The CNRA Senior Task Group on long-term operation has also recently completed a look at the regulatory perspective of long term operation. The focus of this workshop topic is to identify commendable inspection practices for gaining confidence on verifying the licensee’s ability to maintain the effectiveness of aging SSCs.
The competency of the licensee’s operators to perform required tasks and understand the status of the plant during various plant operations is vital to the safe operation of a nuclear facility. The focus of this workshop topic is to identify commendable inspection practices for gaining confidence on operator performance during plant operations. The operations include normal, outage, and off normal conditions. Most regulatory bodies have requirements for training and licensing control room operators. However, experience continues to show that poor operator performance may challenge safe plant operations. Therefore, it is important to have a strong inspection process that identifies problems in this area early. This topic was chosen in spring 2010, however the reliance of the actions and knowledge of the operators during the Fukushima accident demonstrates that vigilance in the area is essential.
A part of the Regulatory Body's activities should be devoted to the inspection of the licensee's oversight of contractors. Some commendable practices in this field were identified during the 8th WGIP Workshop, under the topic of Inspection of Interactions Between the Licensee and its Contractors, which took place in Toronto in 2006 (NEA/CNRA/R(2007)1 and (2007)2). Changes in the nuclear industry sector, including the availability of nuclear expertise, the expansion of the international supply market and the introduction of new technologies have tended to increase the licensee's use of contracted services. These changes have created new or increased challenges for licensees and regulators related to the retention of nuclear expertise, the effective management of the interfaces between the licensees and contractors, and the oversight of contactor manufacturing quality in the context of greater multinational diversity.
Aware of these challenges, the CNRA recently published a regulatory guidance (green) booklet on The Regulator’s Role in Assessing the Licensee’s Oversight of Vendor and Other Contracted Services (NEA/CNRA/R(2011)4). This booklet includes a check list of items that should be considered by a Regulatory Body when inspecting this topic. The objective of this workshop for this task is to identify possible new or updated commendable practices related with licensee's oversight of contractors.
Last reviewed: 9 January 2012