18
NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, September-October 2013
complicated for theWANO programmes -
the peer reviews, the operating experience
programme, the training programmes,
etc – all these programmes are based
on experience sharing. The mission of
WANO is to share experience, to share
good practices. All our programmes are
built around this idea. Just one example;
the peer reviews. Usually a station peer
review is organised by a regional centre
for one station. Tokyo centre organises
the peer review of a Korean power plant.
Systematically we invite two experts
from the other regions – Moscow centre,
Paris centre, Atlanta centre for sharing
good practices and experience. If we
want to have a common post-peer review
assessment process, it means that we
have to be able to compare them and to
benchmark them. If wewant to benchmark
them we need to have comparative results
from the different peer reviews done by
each regional centre. We need guidelines,
best practices and international expertise.
7.
Is WANO’s review of plants made
public?
No. We want the best possible
transparency inside the community,
inside WANO. We need to give some
confidentiality to our members.
8.
How do you avoid duplication with
IAEA’s OSART (Operational Safety
Review Teams) reviews?
These two reviews are a little
different. The scope is a little different.
We signed an MoU with the IAEA in
September 2012. Laurent Stricker (the
former WANO Chairman) did this with
Yukiya Amano (Director General of
IAEA). In this MoU we established
some areas of cooperation. First, we
have to coordinate IAEA OSARTs and
WANO peer reviews. For example, we
would prefer not to plan a peer review to
occur during the same year as an OSART
mission in the same station. So we have to
coordinate the timing of our reviews. The
scope is also different. We also decided
in this MoU, to share information about
our significant event reports and our
performance indicators. In thisMinisterial
Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, an
IAEA conference, I’m invited and I will
be at the panel session tomorrowmorning.
For example, Mr. Amano went to the
BGM in Moscow, he was invited and he
introduced the preliminary sessions. So
we try to exchange information between
our two organisations and to have good
coordination between OSARTs and
WANO’s peer reviews.
9.
Is WANO’s target budget public?
I asked this question to my teams. It’s
complicated because there is a budget for
the London office and there is a budget
for each regional centre. Of course, these
figures are not public. There are also the
secondees in the regional centres who
are still partially paid by their respective
companies. This is not part of the WANO
budget.
For example, I’m still an employee
of EDF but working full time for WANO.
So my salary is not paid by WANO.
There is one budget, operational expense
for London office and for all the regional
centres. There are also loaned staff
members who are the secondees coming
from the member companies who are
still partially paid by their companies.
It’s very complicated to have one single
budget.
10.
Does the WANO London office
coordinate activities of the regional
offices and other organizations such as
IAEA?
The London office tries to do this.
We also decided when we signed the
MoU with the IAEA to have systematic
and regular meetings between the London
office staff and the IAEA. Of course, we
coordinate and share information. We
regularly meet with IAEA staff. Ken
Ellis and I also have frequent bilateral
or sometimes multilateral meetings with
regulators. For example, I met all the
commissioners of the NRC three months
ago in Washington. Of course I know
the French regulators very well. In early
June 2013, I was invited to Brussels, to
an European Nuclear Safety Regulators
Group (ENSREG) meeting. ENSREG is
the organisation of European regulators.
WANO is the only organisation with
everybody on board. All the operators
are on board. The International Nuclear
Regulators’Association (INRA) has only
I think eight or ten regulators. Western
European Nuclear RegulatorsAssociation
(WENRA) is only the European
regulators. So they are interested to meet
with WANO because we represent all the
operators. We have frequent interactions
with IAEA and regular meetings and
informal frequent meetings with the
regulators.
11.
Concluding comments.
My challenges are quite clear.
First, we have to do what was decided
in Shenzhen. Before 2015, we are to
increase our competencies and to improve
our programmes as decided by the Post-
Fukushima Commission. Second, at the
same time, we have to welcome new
entrants, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates,
Vietnam, the Philippines and others.
So our community is changing and
growing. It is very important to prepare
for the future; we know that many new
projects are going on now in Asia. Maybe
in 15 or 20 years, the majority of the
reactors in operation will also be in Asia.
So there is a kind of movement fromWest
to East. I think we have to think about
how we can manage these inside WANO.
Contact: Claire Newell, World
Association of Nuclear Operators, WANO
London, Level 35, 25 Canada Square,
London E14 5LQ, United Kingdom;
telephone: 44 20 7495 9242, email:
.
Preparing for the...
(Continued from page 17)
