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 Hunterston B Local Liaison Committee and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hunterston B Nuclear Power Station. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend LLC meetings and will respond to any questions raised there or subsequently by members of the LLC. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 - 951 - 4103.
In addition to the routine inspection of the station carried out by the site inspector this quarter, there have been planned visits by senior NII inspectors, including the Chief Inspector..
Other inspections were carried out, some involving HMNII specialist inspectors. These were in connection with a number of issues including British Energy's proposal to align its Work Management Processes with its NII approved maintenance schedule, Nuclear Fire safety and a demonstration of the station's proposed off-site emergency arrangements.
The 51st safety review meeting was attended by NII's Superintending Inspector. There was a visit to the site by NII's Chief Inspector and the station hosted a Level 2 meeting between senior management of BE and NII.
The routine inspections for this quarter, covering a range of aspects of plant operation, maintenance, and management were completed. Reactive inspection has also been carried out, with the more significant items reported below. 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.
NII observed Exercise Congo, held on Thursday 22 April, which was a level 2 exercise focusing on BE's offsite response to a nuclear emergency at Hunterston B. This formed part of BE's longer term strategy to provide technical support for the Torness and Hunterston B off-site facilities using the Central Emergency Support Centre at Barnwood, Gloucester. The eventual adoption of these proposed arrangements, subject to NII's Approval, would make them consistent with the rest of the fleet.
As a statutory consultee under Radioactive Substances Act 1993, NII was asked to comment on BEGL's application to dispose of radioactive waste from Hunterston B Power station. The application is associated with the transfer of operations from BEG(UK)L to BEGL as part of the its move towards integration as a single licensee. After considering the documentation provided, NII confirmed to SEPA that we had no objection to the proposed authorised discharge limits.
BE's progress in producing a consolidated water ingress safety case has been reported in NII's previous quarterly reports. In view of the significance attached to the development of a fully consolidated water ingress safety case, prior to giving its formal Consent to the start up of reactor 3, NII obtained assurances from BE that an adequate safety case would have completed due processes and be in place by June 2004. NII is satisfied that this has been done and we will continue to monitor BE's progress in implementing the plant improvements associated with this safety case modification.
The site inspector and the Superintending Inspector attended the 51st annual review of safety meeting on 20th April 2004.
BE's Work Management Process (WMP) has been in place at Hunterston since January 2003. Linked to this, HNB wish to make a generic amendment to the maintenance and test schedule (MITS) preface to allow the redefinition of the MITS intervals to be based on a 35-day month. This has been implemented at other stations and, following a detailed inspection of the maintenance arrangements by an NII Specialist Inspector, BE's application for approval of the MITS preface is being considered. .
The Chief Inspector visited the Hunterston B site on 26th May 2004 and met with the senior station management and safety representatives.
A meeting between senior NII and BE staff was held on 29th June. Although the meeting was held at Hunterston the agenda covered fleet-wide issues. One of the key topics discussed was BE's progress with its Performance Improvement Plan.
NII responds to non-routine events which may affect safety. As part of inspection activities at the site, we investigates safety related events that occur and follow-up those which are perceived initially to have the potential to be more significant. We particularly examine the licensee's response to such events. From our inspections in this quarter we were satisfied that the response by the station has been in accordance with appropriate arrangements. NII's comment on selected events is given below.
Two bulk diesel oil storage tanks failed just before the last LLC meeting and recovery operations were on-going at the time of the meeting. Following a request from NII, and prior to completing the investigation and repair, the station provided an acceptable justification for the continued operation of the reactors. The diesel is needed to maintain essential diesel electric supplies for nuclear safety related plant.
The ability to inject nitrogen into the reactor as an alternative shutdown system to the normal shutdown rods is essential. Although there are separate nitrogen supply lines to each reactor, there is one common reactor blowdown route. An anomaly was identified in the Technical Specifications whereby the necessary availability of nitrogen injection capability was recognised but not that of the common reactor blowdown route. NII has requested a copy (when completre) of the station's investigation report.
The NII has powers under the nuclear site licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition we use licence instruments to issue Specifications, Notifications and Agreements under the conditions of the licence.
During the period of this report no formal licence instruments were issued.
Published on the HSE web site 13 December 2004
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