NEA Mandates and Structures

Expert Group on Operating Experience (EGOE)

Chair(s):	Kenneth BROMAN, Sweden	Secretary:	John NAKOSKI (john.nakoski@oecd-nea.org)
Vice-Chair(s):	Marc FOLDENAUER, Germany
Member(s):	All NEA member countries^*
	Russia (Suspended*)
	^*Russian Federation suspended pursuant to a decision of the OECD Council.
Full participant(s):	European Commission Under the NEA Statute
Participant(s):	India
Observer(s)(International Organisation):	International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) By agreement
Date of creation:	06 February 2023
End of mandate:	31 December 2024

Mandate (Document reference):

Participant Status of India in the CNRA and its subsidiary bodies: 2018 Update of the NEA Participation Plan [NEA/NE(2018)8] and official letter received from India on 15 October 2018 confirming its acceptance of Participant Status in the CNRA and its subsidiary bodies
Summary Record of the 45^th CNRA meeting held on 31 May and 1 June 2021 [NEA/SEN/NRA(2021)1]
Mandate of the Expert Group on Operating Experience (EGOE) [NEA/SEN/NRA(2022)8/FINAL]

Mandate (Document extract):

Extract of document NEA/SEN/NRA(2022)8/FINAL

Background

Operating experience and the lessons learned from all phases of the nuclear power plant (NPP) lifecycle is a valuable source of information for improving the safety and reliability of NPPs. Operating experience is an important part of the oversight of NPPs. An effectively coordinated 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 programs affecting NPPs.

Mandate

The mandate of the Expert Group on Operating Experience (EGOE) is to support the WGRO and 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 will facilitate an active and timely exchange of operating experience information to establish, implement, assess, and continuously improve regulatory oversight practices and programs, share event overviews, perform analyses, disseminate knowledge and provide expert insights from operating experience of nuclear power plants to identify global trends and lessons learned.

Scope

Guided by the WGRO, the EGOE will focus on identifying and sharing relevant lessons learned 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 will also serve as a forum to share safety-relevant operating experience information and assessment of those events by the regulatory body. While the primary focus will be on operating power reactors, experiences from other phases of the reactor lifecycle will be considered.

Objectives

To implement this mandate, the EGOE will:

Discuss safety- and risk-relevant event information, the responses by nuclear power plants and regulatory bodies, and lessons learned 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-relevant 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.

Working methods

In terms of working methods, the EGOE will:

Receive guidance from and report to the Working Group on Reactor Oversight (WGRO) and assist the group with its work. The EGOE program of work will be approved by the WGRO. Also, as requested by WGRO, report to the Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA) on its activities.
Be led by a Bureau, consisting of a Chair and at least one Vice Chair. The Bureau will be selected in accordance with the OECD’s Rules of Procedure and the CNRA Operating Plan.
Organize regularly scheduled meetings, workshops, training activities and conferences.

Membership

Members of EGOE are experts on operating experience from regulatory bodies and technical support organizations.

Interactions

The EGOE will closely co-ordinate with and exchange input with other NEA bodies, especially other CNRA WGs and will work closely with the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI).

The EGOE will co-ordinate as appropriate with other international organizations (e.g. IAEA, the European Commission, etc.), international non-governmental organizations (e.g. WANO, etc.), and the International Reporting System for Operating Experience (IRS).

The IAEA IRS coordinator will be as an observer of the EGOE. The EGOE-secretariat will represent the NEA in the IRS advisory committee.

Deliverables

The CNRA and its subsidiary groups generally produce guidance documents for nuclear safety regulators and other stakeholders interested in commercial nuclear power. Examples include, but are not limited to, green booklets, proceedings of seminars and workshops, collections of commendable practices implemented by regulatory bodies, case studies, and summaries of operating experience.

Based on its analysis of all operating experience with a focus on NPPs, the EGOE will develop specific recommendations on the use of operating experience to enhance safety and prevent events from recurring globally in the short to medium term; such as safety- or risk-significant event communications, best practices workshops, or improvements in managing operations. Other recommendations may include long term proposals for re-assessment of safety, additional research, and new or revised regulatory inspection practices.