France’s Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) will keep the Belleville nuclear plant under increased surveillanc despite an improvement in safety facilities and practices in 2018, the regulator announced in April. ASN placed Belleville under enhanced surveillance in 2017 because of a deterioration in the level of safety found on the site since 2016 and a lack of significant improvements from EDF.
In 2016 the number of significant events at the station increased, in particular those resulting from a lack of supervision in the performance of reactors. ASN said there were eight events classified as Level 1, the lowest of levels on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. There were several failures by the operator in identifying and analysing anomalies affecting safety critical equipment. ASN also noted a deterioration in the quality of answers provided by EDF about the incidents.
In April 2017, ASN carried out a two-day inspection to assess the way EDF detected and treated anomalies that could affect security related equipment. This inspection revealed organisational shortcomings, ASN said. The enhanced monitoring was intended to significantly improve safety performance, including the detection and treatment of deviations, the quality of information provided to ASN and the management of facilities. ASN had put forward improvements especially in terms of "management of deviations and quality of information transmitted to the ASN”. However, it considers that "the progress noted remains to be consolidated” and that performance still needs to improve.
The Belleville plant has two pressurised water reactors with a capacity of 1310MWe each. Belleville 1 was commissioned in 1987 and unit 2 in 1988. ASN said in a statement that it will carry out additional inspections and checks to documentation, while keeping track of EDF’s action plan to fix the issues.
Photo: Belleville nuclear plant (Source: ASN)
