ASN Report 2018

GRAND EST REGIONAL OVERVIEWOF NUCLEAR SAFETY AND RADIATION PROTECTION Fessenheim nuclear power plant The Fessenheim NPP comprises two pressurised water reactors, each with a power rating of 900 MWe, which produce the equivalent of the electricity consumption of the Alsace region (about 12 TWh per year). It is situated 1.5 km from the German border and about 30 km from Switzerland. The two reactors, which constitute BNI 75, were commissioned in 1977. ASN considers that the nuclear safety performance of the Fessenheim site, as in the previous years, stands out positively with respect to the average for the nuclear fleet. The site remains at good level for environmental protection. Lastly, with regard to radiation protection, the site is in line with the general assessment of the EDF plants. The operating safety of the reactors remained highly satisfactory in 2018. The return of reactor 2 to service after lifting the test certificate of its steam generator went well and did not lead to a drop in the performance of the site with respect to 2017, whereas only one reactor was operated that year. The licensee must however improve its preparation for work operations and the periodic tests. The volume of maintenance work was very low in 2018 as there was no scheduled reactor outage, but the effort to maintain the facilities in good condition remains visible. Particular attention shall be paid to the implementation of themaintenance programmes andmaintaining the facilities in good condition in 2019 in view of the future final shutdown of the site (see box). It should be noted that this uncertain context has had no impacts at present, fromASN’s viewpoint, on the social climate and the involvement of the personnel. The number of significant events relating to the environment remains low, confirming the overall positive judgement expressed by ASN in the preceding years. Nevertheless, the fact that the two events reported were detected during the preparation or performance of ASN inspections calls for a reinforcement of the site’s ability to detect deviations, particularly concerning the auxiliary equipment items which are outside the scope of the periodic tests and preventive maintenance programmes. Lastly, in a context of a lowmaintenance workload, no major radiation protection events occurred in 2018. Prospect of final shutdown of the Fessenheim site Following the announcement of further delays in the Flamanville EPR construction worksite, the shutting down of the Fessenheim NPP, initially planned for the end of 2018 was pushed back to 2019, then to 2020, leading to the scheduling of two new refuelling and maintenance outages in 2019. The principle of decorrelating the shutdown of the Fessenheim NPP and commissioning of the Flamanville EPR, in accordance with the Government’s demand, and EDF’s confirmation that there is no prospect of operating reactors 1 and 2 beyond their fourth periodic safety reviews, which reach their respective terms in September 2020 and August 2022, now set an operating limit on the reactors. ASN has noted these factors and in late 2018 started the updating of the prescriptions applicable to the site, particular regarding the «hardened safety core» provisions defined further to the lessons learned from the Fukushima NPP accident (see chapter 10), in order to adapt them to the particular case of a site that is shut down and waiting for decommissioning. ASN nevertheless observes that at the end of 2018 the site still has no firm industrial schedule for its end of operation and has not yet been the subject of a final shutdown notification in accordance with the procedure provided for in Article L. 593‑26 of the Environment Code. ASN considers that the persistent uncertainty in this file, already marked by numerous schedule changes, is unsatisfactory, and it also notes that it particularly affects the life of the site in several respects: ཛྷ ཛྷ the rescheduling of the periodic maintenance operations for equipment items whose withdrawal from service had been planned, then postponed, necessitates a particular effort for planning and the examination of arrangements that might possibly be necessary, particularly those that require a technical assessment or an authorisation; ཛྷ ཛྷ the preparation of the decommissioning file and of those pre-decommissioning operations which can be started as soon as production stops, cannot remain subject to the vagaries of an unstable schedule. ASN nevertheless observes that the site has already started to remove the spent fuel assemblies in order to achieve a situation presenting the lowest possible risk as early as possible; ཛྷ ཛྷ the social climate of the site and the employees’ commitment, which have been satisfactory until now, must be safeguarded. This implies in particular having a clear schedule for the reduction in personnel numbers concomitantly with the shutdown, and individual visibility of personnel transfers. ASN reminds EDF that is must declare final shutdown of the reactors as soon as possible in order to best prepare their decommissioning. EDF has sent ASN a preliminary guideline notice for the fourth periodic safety review of the Fessenheim NPP with a view to final shutdown, and a preliminary decommissioning plan. The final shutdown notification shall be accompanied by an updated decommissioning plan; the decommissioning file must be transmitted no later than two years after the notification. ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018  51