On 21st August 2015, ASN was informed by EDF of the accidental exposure of a worker from an EDF contractor to a dose of ionising radiation exceeding the regulation limit.
EDFs’ workers inspected the involved smoke emission room of the reactor n° 2 of the Flamanville NPP. The results of the inspection put forward that the emergency situation shall not be maintained, EDF decided to lift its emergency plan with ASN’s approval.
On 26 August 2015 at 2:15 am, EDF activated its emergency plan at the Flamanville nuclear power plant as consequence of smoke emission from the nuclear auxiliary building of the reactor n° 2 which has been shut down for maintenance. The involved installation is used for the treatment of radioactive waste.
On 31st July 2015, a female operator of the Colomiers agency of the company Apave Sudeurope was accidentally exposed in the agency's bunker to radiation emitted by an X-ray generator used for industrial radiography.
On 7th April 2015, ASN made public the discovery of an anomaly in the composition of the steel in certain zones of the vessel closure head and the vessel bottom head of the Flamanville EPR reactor.
The Heads of the European Radiation protection Competent Authorities (HERCA) have organised on 6-8 July 2015, a workshop kindly hosted by the French nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) in its premises in Montrouge (France) on the implementation of Radiation Protection Expert (RPE) and Radiation Protection Officer (RPO).
In a letter from its Chairman, Pierre-Franck Chevet, dated 20th March 2015, ASN informed EDF that it has not at this stage identified any generic elements liable to compromise EDF’s capability to satisfactorily control the safety of its 1300 MWe reactors up to the periodic safety review associated with their fourth ten-year inspection.
On 19th March 2015, ASN received the commissioning authorisation application and the partial commissioning authorisation application for the Flamanville 3 reactor submitted by EDF. Article L. 593-11 of the Environment Code effectively stipulates that ASN shall make the authorisation decision under the conditions defined by the decree of 2nd November 2007.
During his visit to France, Yukiya Amano, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), met the ASN Chairman, Pierre-Franck Chevet, on 27th May at the ASN headquarters.
In the second half of 2014 and early 2015, ASN continued its monitoring of the Flamanville 3 EPR reactor and the various manufacturing operations for this reactor. The notable points observed over these last few months are detailed below
On 28th May 2015, reactor 1 in the Cattenom NPP was kept at a nuclear power close of 2% of its rated power, after completing the restart tests which followed its outage for maintenance and partial refuelling .
The incident which affected reactor No. 1 at Cattenom nuclear power plant (Moselle) has been terminated. The reactor is shut down and being cooled normally. EDF has exited its emergency plan and French national emergency organizations have been deactivated.
According to preliminary information available to ASN, the origin of the event that occurred at the reactor n°1 of the Cattenom NPP (Moselle) was an unexpected opening of a secondary system valve which resulted in a steam release. The reactor was automatically shut down at 13:25, according to procedures.
The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) has been informed by EDF at 14:25 that an event occurred at the Cattenom nuclear power plant, in reactor No. 1.
On 16th March 2015, ASN was informed by the ECW company (Courcelles-les-Lens) that one of their gamma ray projects had been carried on the public highway on 2ndMarch 2015 in conditions failing to comply with a number of requirements stipulated by the transport approval issued by ASN.
