Compass
& Other
WANO
Programs
By Peter Prozesky, World Association of
Nuclear Operators (WANO).
Peter Prozesky
Peter Prozesky was appointed to the role
of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the
World Association of Nuclear Operators
(WANO) in January 2016.
Peter has 38 years
of experience in the
power generation
business, starting
his career with
Eskom in 1979,
at Koeberg Power
Station in South
Africa where
he performed
various roles. In
1989, he went on
sabbatical to the
nuclear division
of Taiwan Power
Company, studying
management
techniques and plant
operations.
On his return from Taiwan, Peter worked
at Eskom until 2005 in various positions.
In 2005, he joined British Energy,
which later became EDF Energy, as
Head of Operations (East). In 2013, he
became Continuous Improvement and
Operations Support Director, a position
he held until his appointment to the
position of WANO CEO.
Peter has a Master of Science degree
in Nuclear Reactor Science and
Engineering from the University
of London; and a Senior Reactor
Operator’s Licence.
Responses to questions by Newal
Agnihotri, Editor of Nuclear Plant
Journal.
1.
The national regulators have resident
inspectors on-site, who are WANO’s eyes
and ears at the plant?
WANO, in common with INPO, gen-
erally does not have a permanent pres-
ence on our members’ sites. We do have
a policy that ensures that there is a re-
sponsible contact with each site, and it is
the role of this nominated individual (or
in some cases a team) to maintain an on-
going dialogue with and monitoring role
over the performance of the plant. Each
of our Regional Centres undertakes this
role in a slightly different manner; Mos-
cow, for example, tends to have a repre-
sentative at each site, whereas other Cen-
tres may have a single person assigned to
several plants, and another may have this
role shared out amongst several persons.
WANO formal-
ly visits each plant
every two years;
once every four
years for a compre-
hensive peer review,
and then two years
later for a follow-
up review to assess
progress.
WANO
also monitors events
and performance in-
dicators on a contin-
uous basis, and will
intervene,
should
it become apparent
that that there is a
need to do so.
2.
Is WANO involved in review of
national regulators, which, I believe, is
conducted by IAEA?
WANO is purely an association
of nuclear facility operators, and
as such it has no remit to interface
with national regulators, who are all
ultimately accountable to their national
governments.
3.
Does WANO have an emergency
operation center and how WANO
coordinates it with the national
regulator’s emergency operation center
and the center at INPO?
WANO has developed emergency
response arrangements. As such, each
of the Regional Centres and the London
Office has the capability to stand up an
emergency response team. The WANO
Atlanta Centre staff integrates with
the INPO emergency response centre.
Similar arrangements are in place in
Moscow with the VVER emergency
support centre in VNIIAES. WANO has
a fairly limited role, which is in direct
support to its members. In the event of
an emergency, we will largely confine
ourselves to information dissemination
within our membership and act as a focal
point to gather support from our members
to aid the unit that is in need of help. We
do not have a significant public or media
role during any emergency of one our
members. Official public communications
relating to the event itself needs to come
from the national authorities and the
operator of that facility.
4.
Who doesWANO’s internal assessment
to ensure that WANO is on the right track to
ensure safe plant operation during normal
and abnormal situations?
WANO undertakes an internal
self-assessment every four years. The
assessment is undertaken by a small team
comprising a senior staff member from the
London Office and all Regional Centres.
We generally seek an independent chair/
team leader from the executive ranks
of one of our members. This report is
presented to our Main Governing Board,
which has ultimate responsibility for the
oversight of our organisation.
5.
Provide an example of WANO’s
involvement in deploying the local FLEX
resources at the plant?
As indicated earlier, WANO will
provide support to a member during an
event by seeking assistance from other
members, and providing coordination to
provide this support, be it in the form of
technical advice, or availability to provide
needed resources and equipment.
6.
How can the industry simplify the
radiation units for communication with
the public, who gets very confused;
especially in and after accident period,
with current conventional radiation
units?
There is no simple answer to this
question. My personal belief is that we
should try to draw analogies to other more
common forms of exposure to ionising
radiation, such as equating doses to that
of dental/chest X-rays, or transatlantic
flights.
24
NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2016
