Hauts‑de‑France REGION The Lille division regulates nuclear safety, radiation protection and the transport of radioactive substances in the 5 départements of the Hauts-de-France region. In 2022, ASN’s carried out 124 inspections in the Hauts-de-France region, of which 33 were in the Gravelines NPP, 82 in small‑scale nuclear activities and 9 in the transport of radioactive substances. ASN also carried out 14 days of labour inspection in the Gravelines NPP. In the course of 2022, 12 significant events rated level 1 on the INES scale were reported by the Gravelines NPP, including 3 concerning radiation protection. In small-scale nuclear activities, 3 events were rated level 1 on the INES scale. In radiotherapy, 2 events were rated level 1 on the ASN‑SFRO scale. Gravelines nuclear power plant The Gravelines NPP operated by EDF is located in the Nord département on the shores of the North Sea, between Calais and Dunkerque. This NPP comprises six PWRs (900 MWe) representing a total power of 5,400 MWe. Reactors 1 and 2 constitute BNI 96, reactors 3 and 4 BNI 97 and reactors 5 and 6 BNI 122. ASN considers that the performance of the Gravelines NPP with regard to nuclear safety and radiation protection is below ASN’s general assessment of EDF plant performance. The environmental protection performance of the NPP is in line with ASN’s general assessment of the EDF plants. Nuclear safety performance did not improve in 2022, particularly with regard to the rigour of work interventions. The plan of rigour put in place by the licensee has started to bear fruit, particularly in the operational management of the facilities, but some inappropriate practices or behaviours subsist in other activities. The site must therefore continue its efforts to federate all the protagonists. At the end of the first half of 2022, ASN carried out an interim assessment of the measures put in place by the licensee through a tightened inspection on the theme of safety management, supervised by the ASN Chief Inspector, which did not call into question the relevance of the plan of rigour. The year 2022 was marked by a larger number of significant events reported to ASN than in the preceding years and higher than the average for the EDF reactors, even if the number of events rated level 1 remained stable. The application of new safety baseline requirements linked to the fourth ten‑yearly outages and the large volume of modifications deployed (nearly 500) explains some of them. This upward trend does not necessarily indicate a deterioration in the operating conditions as it may also reflect better performance in the detection of deviations or greater receptiveness on the part of the site’s internal independent safety organisation. As far as maintenance is concerned, 2022 was again marked by significant prolongations in the maintenance and refuelling outage durations, despite an alleviation of the maintenance programme applied in late 2022 to limit the downtime of the last reactor. Three reactors were in outage at the same time, from early July to mid-September, putting an unusual amount of pressure on the services in mid-summer. This increase in activity came on top of an already very full industrial programme with, in particular, the fourth ten‑yearly outage of reactor 3, the end of the replacement of the reactor 6 steam generators and of the work on the peripheral protection against external flooding, implemented further to the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident in Japan. THE INSTALLATIONS AND ACTIVITIES TO REGULATE COMPRISE: the Basic Nuclear Installation: • the Gravelines NPP (6 reactors of 900 MWe) operated by EDF; small-scale nuclear activities in the medical field: • 19 external-beam radiotherapy departments, • 3 brachytherapy departments, • 30 nuclear medicine departments, • 92 centres performing fluoroscopy-guided interventional procedures, • 129 computed tomography scanners, • some 4,600 medical and dental radiology devices; small-scale nuclear activities in the industrial, veterinary and research sectors: • about 600 industrial and research establishments, including 29 companies exercising an industrial radiography activity, 6 particle accelerators, including 1 for inspecting freight trains and 2 cyclotrons, 38 laboratories situated mainly in the universities of the region and 11 companies using gamma ray densitometers, • 340 veterinary surgeries or clinics practising diagnostic radiology; activities associated with the transport of radioactive substances; ASN-approved laboratories and organisations: • 3 agencies approved for radiation protection controls. ABSTRACTS – ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2022 61
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NjQ0NzU=