Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
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 Hinkley Point Local Community Liaison Council (LCLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hinkley Point B Power Station. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend LCLC meetings and will be happy to respond to any questions raised there or subsequently by members of the LCLC. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151-951-4103.
Routine inspections continued in accordance with our annual plan and no significant nuclear safety issues arose.
The HMNII Site Inspector made the following planned visits during the period:
7 - 11 AprilAdditionally, Specialist Inspectors visited the site during the quarter to discuss the graphite core; discuss / inspect the concrete pressure vessel; and discuss plans for inspections during the planned outage of Reactor 3 this summer.
Operation of the reactors at Hinkley Point B was interrupted during this quarter by several unplanned trips of Reactor 4. As part of NII's routine inspection, we often follow-up reactor trips to ensure that appropriate actions have been taken by the Licensee to establish the cause of the trip and to take any necessary corrective actions. Accordingly, British Energy's response to these trips was monitored and found to be adequate.
Routine inspections have continued throughout the period to confirm that the site is operating in compliance with the conditions attached to the Nuclear Site Licence. In areas where opportunities for improvement were identified, remedial work has been agreed with station management, with the intention of achieving improvements to current station arrangements in those areas.
Inspection of the combustible radioactive waste disposal facility revealed that the incinerator is currently out of service and this had led to a larger than normal inventory of low level waste being stored at this facility. The Licensee is taking action to reduce the volume of waste stored and to return the incinerator to service. We will monitor this work.
As the reactors age, programmes of inspection and ageing management and revisions to safety cases are often required. Much of the inspection work is undertaken during reactor outages which take place every three years. The extent of the inspections is normally agreed with NII well before the shutdown, in what is known as the Outage Intentions Meeting. There will be a planned outage of reactor 3 during August and September 2003 and the Outage Intentions Meeting was held in April 2003.
This was supplemented by specific meetings on the inspection requirements for the graphite core and the concrete pressure vessel. These two meetings also discussed the developments in the safety cases for these components. Both these safety cases are complex and they have been developed over the years to take account of ageing effects. They require further development and NII will continue to monitor this closely.
As well as being responsible for inspection of nuclear safety arrangements, NII also has responsibility for inspections of conventional safety at the Station. A conventional safety inspection was completed in June 2003. This included a general safety presentation and discussion with the site Safety Representatives and an inspection of a number of areas of the site. A workshop pillar drill was found to be defective and was locked-off. Other minor issues, primarily relating to site policies, were raised with the Licensee and they are taking actions to address them.
The management and recording of some events which occurred on the station during the period were inspected. Most of these were relatively minor and those of concern to the HMNII Site Inspector were discussed with the appropriate company staff. HMNII was satisfied with the actions taken.
In response to an observed overall increase between 2001 and 2002 in the number of safety-related events reported from British Energy sites, NII inspectors visited each site to look into the licensee's management of such events and see whether there were any common themes. In general, they found that the number of events in 2002 was similar to the average for earlier years, whereas 2001 had witnessed an improvement that has not been sustained at all sites. Nevertheless, the Inspectorate would prefer to see a downward trend (while not wishing to disturb the open reporting culture that was found at all the sites) and expects to be able to make recommendations to the licensee to help them achieve that, largely through better use of Operational Experience Feedback. At Hinkley Point B the inspectors considered that the small increase in the number of events was mainly due to a planned reactor outage in 2002 and a number of reactor trips.
The regulations that cover chemical industries, primarily the Control of Major Accident Hazard Regulations (COMAH), are undergoing a series of changes. As a result, Hinkley Point B has temporarily become an "Upper Tier" site, but in the long term it will be a "Lower Tier" site. Hinkley Point B wrote to NII in April to confirm their new status under the COMAH regulations and the Station has been placed on the public register for such sites. The regulations require certain precautionary measures to be in place on Upper and Lower Tier sites, but the impact for Hinkley Point B will be minimal as they already have similar measures in place due to the requirements of their Nuclear Site Licence.
There have been a number of instances recently where conventional items of lifting equipment have failed their annual statutory inspections. NII felt that this might be indicating a weakness in the maintenance arrangements for this equipment and we have asked the Licensee to undertake a review in this area. They have responded by arranging for a comprehensive review by an external contractor. We await the results of this review.
British Energy Generation (UK) Ltd announced on 2 July 2003 its intention to close its Peel Park office in East Kilbride and transfer a number of operational jobs to its Barnwood office in Gloucester. While this has more of an impact for central support activities to British Energy's Scottish sites, there is nevertheless a potential to effect the support to its' English sites, including Hinkley Point B. NII will therefore need to be fully satisfied that the safety implications of the proposed move are properly addressed. British Energy has confirmed that its proposal falls within the scope of Licence Condition 36, 'Control of Organisational Change', and that it will be controlled using the arrangements made to comply with this Licence Condition. NII has told British Energy that it will not be allowed to implement this proposal until it has submitted the safety case and NII has assessed this and agreed that nuclear safety will be maintained.
The Inspectorate has powers under the Nuclear Site Licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition, the Inspectorate uses Licence Instruments to issue Specifications and Agreements under the conditions attached to the Site Licence.
During this quarter no Licence Instruments were issued.
Published on the HSE web site 8 September 2003