British Energy Generation Ltd Hartlepool Power Station report - Q1 2009

Local community liaison council quarterly report for 1 January to 31 March 2009

Inspections
Routine matters
Non routine matters
Regulatory activity

Foreword

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 Hartlepool Power Station Local Community Liaison Council and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hartlepool Power Station. 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 usually attend LCLC meetings and will respond to questions raised there by members of the LCLC.

Nuclear Safety Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS

Inspections

The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) Site Inspector made inspections at Hartlepool Power Station on the following dates during the quarter:

12 - 14 January 2009
11 - 13 February 2009
25 - 27 February 2009
16 - 19 March 2009

On 16 - 17 March two specialist Quality Assurance inspectors visited the site as part of a British Energy wide inspection on their quality assurance arrangements.

Routine matters

Inspections at Site: Inspections are undertaken at site as part of the process for monitoring compliance with:

the conditions attached by HSE/NII to the nuclear site licence;
the Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974 and
regulations made under the HSWA for example the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

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 licensees/operators are 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 of Hartlepool Power Station covered:

Incidents on site - in particular aspects of the corrective action process.
Modification to plant equipment and safety cases
Management of operations including control and supervision - this included plant configuration control of post trip cooling systems
Emergency Preparedness - attendance at the Emergency Planning Consultative Committee and the exercise review meeting to finalise the demonstration emergency exercise planned for April 2009.
Maintenance inspection and testing of plant - in particular the post trip cooling system
Radioactive waste management - an inspection of the active effluent treatment plant and discussion of plant improvements
Quality Assurance - Hartlepool was inspected as part of a Company audit of QA arrangements

In general the arrangements made and implemented by the station 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 inspector will monitor progress during future visits. Where necessary, formal regulatory enforcement action will be taken to ensure that appropriate remedial measures are implemented to reasonably practicable timescales.

Both reactors at Hartlepool were shut down towards the end of 2007 following the discovery of degradation of the pre-stressing wire windings on the boiler closure units (BCUs) which threatened the integrity of these components. The licensee has carried out significant modifications to the BCUs and the NII has carried out detailed assessment of the safety case to support the return to power operation. In addition the licensee has made improvements to the plant to improve its capability to withstand internally generated hazards including hot gas and steam release faults and a turbine disintegration leading to a major fire. Another large project to replace the ageing essential cooling water system has also been completed during the BCU repair outage.

The NII gave its agreement to the long term safety case supporting the BCU modifications and agreed to both reactors to returning to power operation in January 2009.

Non-routine matters

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. There were no reportable events during the period.

Regulatory activity

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 HSE/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.

Licence Instrument 530 gave our agreement to the long term safety case for the modified boiler closure units.
Licence Instrument 529 gave our Consent to the start up reactor 1 at Hartlepool following the BCU repairs
Licence Instrument 531 Gave our agreement to the start up reactor 2 at Hartlepool following the BCU repairs

No enforcement notices were issued during the quarter.

Changes to HSE's nuclear directorate

In early 2008 the Government initiated a review into the UK's nuclear safety regulatory regime, led by Dr Tim Stone. The recommendations and the UK's Government response were published at the end of January 2009. One of the major recommendations is the decision by Government to establish the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) Nuclear Directorate (ND) as a Statutory Corporation under the auspices of the HSE.

The creation of this new, autonomous body, (which will continue to incorporate the Office for Civil Nuclear Security and the UK Safeguards Office) will facilitate a more sustainable approach to regulating nuclear safety and security within a rapidly changing global nuclear environment and recruitment of high calibre of staff within a hardening market place for highly specialised skills.

The restructuring will not change the substance or standards of regulation or compromise the independence of the nuclear regulatory body, and will not affect the decisions it takes or the international obligations the Government requires it to meet.

Enabling work continues for the initial scoping and planning of the work-streams and programmes necessary for the Statutory Corporation to come into being from April 2010. This project has required the temporary enhancement of ND's senior management capability in order to deliver existing regulatory work and to create the Statutory Corporation.