Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
This report is issued as part of the Health and Safety Executive's commitment to make infor-mation 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 Nu-clear 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. The HMNII Site Inspec-tor made the following planned visits during the period:
1 July
7 - 9 July
11&12 August
7 - 10 September
21 - 23 September
During this quarter the Hinkley Point B reactors have had a fairly
good period of steady op-eration. However there was one unplanned
reactor shutdown following a water leak onto some electrical
equipment and on another occasion a Site Incident was declared (see
below).
Routine and reactive 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 ar-rangements in those areas.
Following some internal re-organisation in NII, there has been a change of Superintending Inspector responsible for Hinkley Point B. The new Superintending Inspector attended site for a re-familiarisation visit and to meet the management team in July. He also returned to site in September to participate in the Station Review Meeting (see below).
A Specialist NII inspector also visited the Station to undertake an inspection of some parts of the Quality Assurance system.
A meeting was held in July 2004 to review progress on implementing the recommendations from an investigation of an industrial accident. This accident occurred during the 2003 outage when a rigger was crushed and received minor injury while conducting a crane slinging operation. Progress on the recommendations was adequate, however certain actions will only be put in to practice and proven at the next planned outage. We therefore agreed that Station would need to review all these actions again at that time.
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 generally satisfied with the actions taken.
However, one of these events was more significant and led to a Site Incident being declared on 21 July following a minor release of reactor gas into the reactor building. The leak was immediately stopped and all personnel were accounted for promptly. Investigation identified the source of the leak, which was subsequently repaired. A formal investigation was con-ducted by Station management to establish the cause and make recommendations to prevent recurrence. I carried out a number of inspections related to this event, including a review of the investigation report recommendations. I was satisfied with the immediate actions taken and the planned longer term actions that are being progressed.
A formal Station Review Meeting was satisfactorily completed on 22 September. This fol-lows on from the Annual Review meeting that was held in March, and was judged worth-while as there will be no formal Start-up meeting this year (as there is no planned reactor pe-riodic shutdown). This Review meeting covered key aspects of safety performance in the last 6 months, as well as current issues such as Station initiatives to improve plant condition or reduce numbers of non-essential defects. This meeting also provided an opportunity for NII's Superintending Inspector and the Site Inspector to carry out an inspection of the site. No sig-nificant new issues arose.
On 9 September I attended the Emergency Planning Consultative Committee Meeting, which covers the detailed liaison between those groups involved in the Emergency Plans for the A & B Stations. This included members of A & B Station staff, Environment Agency, Police, Fire Service, Somerset Council, Health Authority etc.
I attended the Emergency Exercise Annual Review Meeting on 23 September. This reviews progress made on addressing the lessons learned from the previous demonstration emergency exercise; and discusses the proposals for the next demonstration exercise, which will be held in December 2004.
In my report for Quarter 2 of 2004, I described that I had issued a formal Improvement No-tice that requires Hinkley Point B to review and revise its arrangements for the management of defects and the monitoring of compliance with the safety case; and then to put in place an appropriate programme to introduce the revised arrangements. During this latest Quarter, I have discussed the programme of work that the Station have put in place in response to this Notice. These actions seem appropriate and I will continue to review them from time to time. The required completion date for the Notice is 15 December 2004.
Safety case for cast iron cooling system pipework
My report for Quarter 2 of 2004 described the project currently underway to replace the cast iron cooling pipework at the Station. Discussions on the plans for this work have continued. Station have completed some minor replacement, but the bulk of the work is programmed to commence in April 2005. A safety case for continued operation until then has been submit-ted.
British Energy are continuing to develop their Performance Improvement Project. Significant changes to the Station Management structure have been implemented, with more managers being appointed. Recruitment of additional technicians and reactor operating staff is now in-hand and additional investment in plant improvement is planned for the next few years. These changes potentially have a beneficial effect on safety and NII have been monitoring their implementation so as to be satisfied that British Energy is correctly managing nuclear safety related aspects.
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, the following was issued:-
Licence Instrument No G6 was issued under Licence Condition 36(1) on 28 July 2004. This was a Specification that required British Energy to send NII details of the proposal to appoint Mr Roy Anderson as Managing Director BE Generation; and await NII agreement before implementing this change.
Licence Instrument No G8 was issued under Licence Condition 36(1) on 30 July 2004. This was an Agreement that allowed British Energy to implement the above change.
Published on the HSE web site 18 January 2005