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 regula-tion of safety at Hinkley Point B Power Station. These reports are distributed quar-terly. 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 cov-ered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151-951-4103.
Routine inspections continued in accordance with our annual plan. The HMNII Site Inspector made the following planned visits during the period:
6 - 8 January
2 - 5 February
2 - 4, 9-12 and 30 & 31 March
During this quarter the Station suffered from a number of reactor trips and unplanned shutdowns. From NII's regulatory point of view we wish to see the number of such trips and unplanned reactor shutdowns minimised as they cause unintentional use of safety systems. However, the safety systems are designed to manage trips and shutdowns in a routine and controlled fashion and the significance of such events is minimal. The reasons for these trips and shutdowns were investigated by the Site Inspector to ensure that appropriate actions have been taken by the Licensee. Ac-cordingly, British Energy's response 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.
Specialist NII inspectors also visited the Station to support the site inspector with in-spections of radioactive contamination control and the safety of cooling systems con-taining cast iron pipework (see below).
The Quarterly report for July - September 2003 reported that two potentially serious accidents occurred during the Reactor 3 outage. NII wrote to British Energy and one of its contractors asking for a progress report on the implementation of the recom-mendations arising from their investigations. The responses have now been re-ceived and these identify the improvements that have been put in place to prevent recurrence.
A HSE Specialist Inspector visited the Station to support the site inspector with a sample inspection of conventional fire safety. Some minor areas for improvement were noted but no major issues arose.
The management and recording of some events that 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.
On 10/3/2004 the Station Review Meeting was held. This is an annual meeting which reviews key aspects of safety performance in the preceding year, as well as issues such Station initiatives to improve plant condition or reduce numbers of non-essential defects. This was also attended by NII's Superintending Inspector and the opportunity was taken by him and the Site Inspector to carry out an inspection of the site. No significant issues arose other than those which are already included in NII and British Energy work programmes.
A significant leak occurred on a cooling system at Heysham 1 power station in Octo-ber 2003. This was due to the failure of a flange on a cast iron pipe. Since then, the implications of this failure have been considered across all British Energy Stations. At Hinkley Point B there are some cooling systems with cast iron pipes and British Energy have reviewed the safety case for continued operation. This has included non-destructive examination of significant areas of pipework with the resultant re-placement of some cast iron components. NII have been kept closely informed and a group of NII Specialist Inspectors who are assessing this safety case visited the Station in March and will return for a more detailed discussion in April. In the longer-term, British Energy have given a commitment to replacing the most safety signifi-cant cooling system pipework, and for this work to be substantially completed by the end of 2004.
British Energy have announced changes in the station structure in order to improve operational focus and the management of work, and to allow system engineers to fo-cus more effectively on the performance of the systems on the plant. Many of the changes are in response to findings from WANO (World Association of Nuclear Op-erators) activities. Further changes are expected as British Energy rolls out its new Performance Improvement Project. The changes potentially have a beneficial effect on safety on the stations. NII will continue to monitor the implementation of the changes so as to be satisfied that British Energy is correctly managing nuclear safety related aspects.
A familiarisation visit was made to the Taunton Local Emergency Centre (LEC) which is located at Taunton Police Station. Use of the LEC is included within the Hinkley Point B Emergency Plan and it would be used for coordinating the response to a major site emergency. The facilities were well organised and are put into use fairly frequently as they are also used as a "Casualty Bureau" for real events as well as for periodic exercises.
"A" Station have now written to Hinkley Point B to formally give notice that they will be standing-down their Fire Team and some Health Physics support, from March 2005, commensurate with the reduced inventory of fuel as decommissioning pro-gresses. "A" Station currently provide back up to the B Station Fire Team and Health Physics monitors in the event of Site emergencies and this change is likely to involve an amendment to the Emergency Plan on "B" Station, which would require NII Ap-proval. I have agreed that a programme for managing this change, leading to NII Approval of the revised Emergency Plan, will be developed and forwarded to NII dur-ing May.
The Inspectorate has powers under the Nuclear Site Licence to issue Consents, Ap-provals and Directions. In addition, the Inspectorate uses Licence Instruments to is-sue Specifications and Agreements under the conditions attached to the Site Li-cence.
During this quarter no Licence Instruments were issued.
Published on the HSE web site 23 August 2004