Flamanville NPP 1 and 2: ASN places the site under reinforced surveillance

ASN has decided to place the Flamanville NPP under reinforced surveillance in the light of the difficulties encountered by EDF on this NPP since mid-2018.

On 4 July 2019, the ASN Director General summoned the Director of the Flamanville 1 and 2 NPP to a hearing and asked him to submit an action plan to reinforce the management and oversight of operational activities. He notably underlined deficiencies in the technical skills involved in certain operational activities, the high number of significant events linked to maintenance defects and contractor oversight shortcomings, poor management of certain maintenance operations and the inadequate quality of the documents transmitted to him for the ten-yearly outage inspection of reactor 1.

The reinforced surveillance decided on by ASN will notably entail additional checks, with particular attention being paid to the implementation of the action plan defined by EDF following the summons issued to the NPP Director. By means of inspections, ASN will regularly check the effectiveness of the improvement steps taken by EDF.

Three topics will be subject to particularly close examination:

• management of maintenance and operating activities and the corresponding documentation;
• management of operating experience feedback, in particular the reporting of significant events to ASN;
• EDF’s oversight of safety and the priority given to safety issues in the decision-making process.

The Flamanville NPP comprises two 1300 MWe reactors, commissioned in 1985 and 1986. Reactor 2 is currently shut down for its third ten-yearly outage inspection. Reactor 3, which is an EPR currently under construction on the same site, is not concerned by this reinforced surveillance process.

Two EDF NPPs are currently placed under reinforced surveillance by ASN: Belleville-sur-Loire and Flamanville 1 and 2.

To find out more (in french):

Published on 18/07/2019 at 14:00

Flamanville 1 et 2 : renforcer la maîtrise et le contrôle des activités d’exploitation

Le 4 juillet 2019, le directeur général de l’ASN a convoqué le directeur de la centrale nucléaire de Flamanville à la suite des difficultés rencontrées sur cette centrale depuis mi-2018. Après l’avoir auditionné, l’ASN a demandé au directeur de la centrale de transmettre d’ici la fin du mois d’août un plan d’action visant à renforcer la maîtrise et le contrôle des activités d’exploitation.

Published on 17/04/2019 at 09:30

Belleville-sur-Loire : surveillance renforcée maintenue

Au vu des résultats de la surveillance renforcée de la centrale nucléaire de Belleville qu’elle mène depuis septembre 2017, l’Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN) constate que l’état des installations et les pratiques en matière de sûreté se sont de manière générale améliorés en 2018, notamment en matière de gestion des écarts et de qualité des informations transmises à l’ASN. Elle considère néanmoins que les progrès constatés restent à consolider et que les performances en conduite des installations doivent encore s’améliorer.