Expert Group on Operating Experience (EGOE)

Operating experience and the lessons learnt from all phases of the nuclear power plant lifecycle is a valuable source of information for improving the safety and reliability of nuclear facilities. An effectively co-ordinated operating experience program systematically reviews event information, assesses its significance, provides timely and effective communication, helps to prevent events from recurring, and applies insights to regulatory decisions and programmes affecting nuclear power plants.

Mandate

The mandate of the Expert Group on Operating Experience (EGOE) is to support the Working Group on Reactor Oversight (WGRO) and the Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA) to carry out their mandates by assessing operating experience of nuclear installations to identify what might be done to help enhance safety and prevent events from recurring globally.

In order to do so, the EGOE facilitates an active and timely exchange of operating experience information to establish, implement, assess, and continuously improve regulatory oversight practices and programmes, share event overviews, perform analyses, disseminate knowledge and provide expert insights from operating experience of nuclear power plants to identify global trends and lessons learnt.

Scope

Guided by the WGRO, the EGOE focuses on identifying and sharing relevant lessons learnt and good practices obtained from the evaluation of operating experience to help to prevent events from recurring and to provide assurance of the safe operation of nuclear power plants. The EGOE also serves as a forum to share safety-related operating experience information and assessment of those events by the regulatory body. While the primary focus is on operating power reactors, experiences from other phases of the reactor lifecycle are considered.

Objectives

To implement this mandate, the EGOE will:

Discuss safety- and risk-related event information, the responses by nuclear power plants and regulatory bodies, and lessons learnt, including the effectiveness of preventive or corrective actions taken to prevent recurrence.
Provide insights from operating experience on best practices and methods to help regulatory bodies focus on areas of greatest safety significance and to provide improved techniques and methods to collect and evaluate national and international operational experience.
Review, assess, and share safety-related operational events from the International Reporting System for Operating Experience (IRS) and other databases.
Actively support the work on IRS products, as well as host IRS meeting every other year.
Provide expert insights and recommendations to regulators on how to use operating experience to assess or re-assess safety, perform additional research, improve inspection programs or operations management, and other actions to maintain and improve safety in the long term.
Provide methods to integrate information collected from operating experience activities in order to help make decisions in a technically-sound manner.
Provide methods, practices, and technologies to ensure that operating experience is managed in a manner that promotes new and established good practices that help to prevent the recurrence of events globally.

Contact

John Nakoski

Members' area

Members' area(password protected)

Activities

results

Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA)

The Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA) is an international committee created in 1989 to guide the NEA concerning safety in the regulation, licensing and inspection of nuclear installations.

See

The Working Group on Reactor Oversight (WGRO)

The Working Group on Reactor Oversight (WGRO) works to provide a mechanism for nuclear safety regulators and Technical Support Organisations (TSOs) to share their knowledge and experience on both, the human and technical aspects of reactor oversight.

See