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 Heysham Power Stations’ Local Community Liaison Council (LCLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Heysham 1 & 2 Nuclear Power Stations. These reports are distributed quarterly and are also available on the HSE’s web site at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/index.htm. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) attend LCLC meetings and will respond to questions raised there by members of the LCLC. Any other person wishing to enquire about matters covered by this report may contact the HSE’s Nuclear Directorate on 0151 951 3484/3290.
Nuclear Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) Site Inspectors and other inspectors made inspections at Heysham on the following dates during the quarter:-
Heysham 1
| Jan 2008 | 7, 8, 9, 15, 16 & 30 |
|---|---|
| Feb 2008 | 5, 6, 12, 13 & 22 |
| Mar 2008 | 5, 7, 11 & 14 |
Heysham 2
| Jan 2008 | 8, 9 & 10, |
|---|---|
| Feb 2008 | 5, 6, 7, 26 & 27 |
| Mar 2008 | 6 & 7. |
Inspections at Site: Inspections are undertaken at site as part of the process for monitoring compliance with:
This entails monitoring licensee’s actions on the site in relation to incidents, operations, maintenance, projects, modifications, safety case changes and any other matters which may affect safety. The licensee is required to make and implement adequate arrangements under the conditions attached to the licence in order to ensure legal compliance. Inspections seek to judge both the adequacy of these arrangements and their implementation. In this period routine inspections on site covered:
In general the arrangements made and implemented by the stations in response to safety requirements were deemed to be adequate in the areas inspected. However, where improvements were considered necessary, satisfactory commitments to address the issues were made by or are being sought from the licensee, and the site inspectors will monitor progress during future visits. Where necessary, formal regulatory intervention action may be taken to ensure that appropriate remedial measures are implemented to reasonably practicable timescales.
Both Heysham 1 reactors remain shutdown due to the BCU issue that was reported under ‘Incidents’ in the previous quarter’s LCLC report. A BCU recovery project is still on-going and the issue continues to receive close scrutiny by NII. Specific regulatory holds are in place for the restart of both reactors, which means NII permission will be required before the return to service of either reactor.
A requirement of the Nuclear Site Licence is that Station performs a major review of safety every 10 years. The PSR requires a review of the existing safety case, a comparison of the plant with modern standards and identification of ageing related phenomena that may affect safety. NII has received the PSR2 submission for both the Hartlepool and Heysham 1 facilities. NII will assess this submission and develop a view on British Energy’s compliance with Nuclear Site Licence. The due date for our decision is the end of January 2009.
Nothing to report in this period.
Licensees are required to have arrangements to respond to non-routine matters and events. NII inspectors judge the adequacy of the licensee’s response including actions taken to implement any necessary improvements. Matters of particular note considered during the period include the following:
There have been no nuclear reportable events in this period at Heysham 1
Unplanned Reactor Shutdown. In January, following routine maintenance on a water cooling pump serving the main generator, staff were bringing the system back into service and the system lost water flow for a short period. This was enough to trip the main turbine which in turn led to a trip of Reactor 8. Station decided to keep the reactor shut down for 2 weeks. An investigation into the circumstances surrounding this event has uncovered the root causes and recommended corrective actions to help prevent a recurrence. NII is content with the outcome of the Station’s investigation and proposed actions.
During routine maintenance of the reactor 8 MUS in December 2007 Station detected that one of a pair of rubber seals had failed. These seals (there are several seal pairs on the MUS joints) form part of the containment for reactor gas when refuelling the reactor at low power. A safety case was provided by the Station to justify continued use of the MUS until May 2008. NII was content with the safety case but requested that Station replace the seal earlier than that originally proposed. Station responded to the NII request and will commence an outage to replace all the MUS seals in April 2008.
Under Health and Safety legislation NII Site Inspectors, and other HSE Inspectors, may issue formal documents to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Under nuclear site licence conditions NII issues regulatory documents, which either permission an activity or requires some form of action to be taken; these are collectively termed Licence Instruments (LI). In addition inspectors may issue enforcement notices to secure improvements to safety.
No LI were issued to Heysham during the quarter.
No enforcement notices were issued during the reporting period.