Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
Inspections
Routine
Matters
Non Routine Matters
Regulatory Activity
This report is issued as part of the Health and Safety Executive's commitment to make information about inspection and regulatory activities relating to the above site available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the Dungeness Power Station Local Community Liaison Council (LCLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Dungeness A Nuclear Power Plant. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend LCLC meetings and will be happy to respond to any questions raised there by members. Any other person wishing to enquire about matters covered by this report may contact HSE's Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151-951-4103.
1. A total of 7 different NII Inspectors visited the Dungeness A site during the quarter. Inspections were made on the following days:
20 - 23 October
11 -13 November
1 - 4 December
2. Inspections are undertaken for the purpose of monitoring compliance with (i) the conditions attached by HSE to the nuclear site licences, and (ii) other relevant provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, including the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999. In this period routine inspections covered:
a. Provision and assessment of safety cases and compliance with
arrangements made under licence conditions.
b. Management of operations and maintenance.
c. Control and supervision of operations.
d. Emergency Preparedness.
e. Training and authorisation.
f. Management of radioactive waste
g. Organisational change
3. Demonstration Emergency Exercise: NII observed the annual Dungeness A exercise on Wednesday 22 October 2003. NII confirmed that several aspects of the exercise were found to be adequate. However, there were some less secure features, which Dungeness A was requested to further demonstrate in early 2004. These were in the following areas: -
i. Site muster/roll call and accounting for personnel;
ii. The use of the Emergency Control Centre, particularly in the area of conservative decision making over public protection and timely advice on countermeasures to the police, and casualty rescue;
iii. The off-site monitoring survey response and
iv. Function of the Access Control Point particularly in relation to casualty management processes.
4. Partial Loss of off-site power. On 13 December a failure of some Grid Co equipment in its Switch House led to the partial loss of electrical power to the station. The Dungeness A operators quickly took the decision to shut down both reactors. Subsequently there were problems encountered with internal back-up power supplies, which led to a transgression of one of the shutdown coolant circuit operating rules for 15 minutes. Back-up power was restored and over the period of the following week inspection, testing and a modification to the operating instructions were undertaken and then the reactors were restarted. NII wrote to the Station Manager asking for a full report into the events and the actions taken to prevent a recurrence of the difficulties encountered with the back-up supplies. The event was classified on the International Nuclear Event Scale at Level 1; an anomaly.
5. Joint Inspection with EA Site Inspector. As part of the Memorandum of Understanding between the HSE and EA the two respective site inspectors met to share inspection plans for the near term and they also undertook a joint inspection of one of the waste facilties on site.
6. As part of its regulation under the nuclear site
licences NII issues formal regulatory documents, which include
Consents, Approvals, Directions, and Licence Instruments[1].
For Dungeness A, during the quarter NII issued five such documents:
-
Approval No 19 - Approval of amendments to the Emergency Plan in the
light of the requirements under Radiation Emergency Prepardeness and
Public Information Regulations.
LI No 39 - Agreement to raise the concrete reactor bioshield maximum temperature.
LI No 40 - Agreement to operation of the installed shield cooling air heaters.
LI No 41 - Agreement to implement an updated version of the computerised work control system.
LI No 42 - Agreement to changes to the boiler in-service-inspection scheme.
[1] Licence Instruments are issued to acknowledge receipt of specified documents, eg proposals for a new or modified plant; to stipulate whether the Inspectorate intends to examine these documents, or to agree to the start of a particular phase of construction, commissioning, modification, or decommissioning.
Published on the HSE web site 20 February 2004