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NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2015
A More
Integrated
WANO to
Enhance
Nuclear
Safety
Worldwide
By Jacques Regaldo, World Association
of Nuclear Operators (WANO).
Jacques Regaldo
Jacques REGALDO has an engineering
degree from the “Ecole Nationale
des Ponts et Chaussées”. He has
33 years experience, mainly in the
Nuclear Operation
area, and also in
Fossil and Hydro
Generation and also
Human Resources
and employment
Management.
He joined EDF
in 1980 and held
various positions,
including Operating
Senior Vice-president
of EDF Generation
Department from
2007 to 2013.
He as been elected as Wano Chairman in
October 2012 and took this position on
March 1, 2013.
An interview by Newal Agnihotri, Editor
of Nuclear Plant Journal, at the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission’s Regulatory
Information Conference in North
Bethesda, Maryland on March 12, 2015.
1.
How is WANO ensuring the
operational safety of the plants with
digital safety related controls?
WANO has nothing against digital
I&C and to use more computerized
controls, for example. I&C, it is not a
concern for WANO. What is a concern
for WANO is to be sure that nuclear
safety is guaranteed. We will check that
people are correctly trained, are used to
this kind of new digital material, I&C,
and we will check that all the safety rules
are fully respected.
We’re only focused on safety issues,
and we want to check that people are
correctly trained, it is well designed,
and all the safety features are taken into
account for normal operation or incident
operation.
2.
How has WANO progressed, since
Shenzhen, China, Biennial General
Meeting (BGM)?
It was in 2011 at the Shenzhen BGM,
so two years before the Moscow BGM,
that we decided to strengthen the differ-
ent WANO programs. For example, to
have more frequent
peer reviews, system-
atic corporate peer
reviews for each of
our members, to en-
large the scope of our
programs and peer re-
views, for example, to
have a stronger focus
on emergency pre-
paredness, on spent
fuel storage, on some
design aspects. All
these decisions were
taken in 2011, and I
said in Moscow that our objective was to
be on time and to have nearly fully imple-
mented all these decisions and improve-
ments before the next BGM that will be
in October 2015 in Toronto, Canada. So,
up to now I consider we are on the right
path, that we made a lot of progress in
every field, in every program. Next year
we’ll really follow our objective to have
one station peer review every four years
for every power plant in the world and to
follow up two years after. We will finish
it before 2017 to carry out all the corpo-
rate peer review we decided. We are also
carrying out pre-startup peer reviews for
every new reactor.
We are also on the track to reinforce
the resources of WANO because all this
can be possible only if we increase our
staff. Three years ago in 2012, we were
close to 200 permanent staff in WANO,
and at the end of this year we’ll reach
nearly 400, double, and we are on the
track to increase our internal resources,
and at the same time we’ll also increase
the fees in the same proportion.
We’ll still have to improve a few
things, for example the decision we took
related to taking into account some design
aspects. We’restillworkingonthisspecific
topic, and we’re only experimenting what
we call design informed reviews in some
regions. So, it is the beginning. I think
of this project, integrating some design
aspects, but it will take several years.
We are also experimenting what we call
the WANO global safety assessment or
grading process of all the power plants
in the world. We started this process in
September 2014, but because we need to
have all the input of peer reviews, it will
probably last a minimum of four years
before assessing all the power plants. It
is the beginning of the process, but we
made great progress I think to build the
process, the methodology of this WANO
se,
challenging for us, but we are on the right
path.
3.
Please elaborate on “design
informed reviews”.
The role of WANO is not to
recommend a type of design, because
every operator of any design is a member
of WANO. We must not recommend a
specific type of design. But we have to
check that during normal operation, the
operators bring constant improvement
in their installations, in their technical
equipment according to the operating
feedback. And before the peer review, we
plan to have a kind of analysis of the initial
design, the safety level corresponding to
this initial design, and during the review
we check that the plant operator is well
aware about this initial safety level of
the design and also is taking care or still
improving it during the operating life.
The purpose of design informed review
is to check that they have this objective
to still improve the design during normal
operation.
