The Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company (a part of the Electric Power Division of ROSATOM) is ready to support the novice countries on any aspects related to safe and reliable NPP operation jointly with the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO).
This statement was made by Oleg Chernikov, the First Deputy Director of NPP production and operation at Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company, during the XI International ATOMEXPO-2018 Forum in Sochi.
On April 16, the WANO and Rosenergoatom held a joint ‘roundtable’ on the subject of ‘Working together for a safe future’ as a part of the Forum. The main topics for discussion were safe and reliable NPP operation, professional leadership, and support for novice nuclear countries.
‘Nowadays, Rosenergoatom is the only company in the country that acts as a nuclear power plant operator. Russia has accumulated experience of operating NPPs safely and in a reliable fashion for decades, so we are confident our expertise in this area is impressive, and we are happy to share our knowledge and experience with anyone who is interested’, Oleg Georgievich said.
He also mentioned that helping novice countries goes beyond the nuclear safety culture, the basic tenants of operating staff work, the organizational efficiency and control, making operational decisions and staff training – it also encompasses the elaboration of KPIs and effective cooperation with the IAWA and involvement of new companies in the industry at an early stage of them joining the WANO.
Additionally, he noted that Rosenergoatom, which puts an emphasize to following the safety principles, is one of the key WANO members. ‘The Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company is a first-category WANO member and a key one for the Moscow office of WANO, while the Russian nuclear power plants (the Company’s affiliates) have been the WANO members almost since its inception. During these 18 years, these plants haven’t shown a single issue that could be classified above Level 1 (‘anomaly’) according to the International Nuclear Event Scale, which is a considerable KPI confirming high safety level’.
It is important to point out that up to 8 WANO partnership verifications are held at the Company annually. There were 6 of them in 2018. This year, the company’s central office and its NPPs hosted 28 supportive missions dedicated to operational safety and reliability. In addition to that, regular accident-prevention practice runs are held at the NPPs, and some of those involve international observers and the Local Crisis Center of the Moscow WANO Office. There were 11 such runs in 2018.
The key roundtable speakers were: Peter Prozesky, WANO CEO, Yaroslav Golubets, the Chairman of the Executive Council at the Moscow WANO Office and the Board Member at the AO ‘Slovak Electric Power Plants’, Jeff Bramblett, the Director of Operations at the Atlanta WANO Office, Ramdas Bhattacharya, the Executive Senior Counsellor of the Tokyo WANO Office, Alex Poliakov, the Director of Technical Support Program at the London WANO Office.
For reference:
WANO – the World Association of Nuclear Operators – is a nonprofit organization uniting all NPP operators of the world, which is over 120 companies in the industry from over 30 countries. The WANO membership is facilitated by one of multiple local offices based in Atlanta, Moscow, Paris, and Tokyo. Their activities are coordinated by the WANO office in London. The main goal of the WANO is to unite and support the operating companies. The Association fosters proactive exchange of best practices in NPP operation that help to achieve top-notch safety and reliability levels when running commercial reactors all around the globe. Under the auspices of the WANO, all operating companies can communicate between each other and exchange information in the spirit of cooperation and transparency, which helps every company learn from their counterparts’ experience, problems and best practices.
Rosenergoatom JSC is the leading enterprise of the Electric Energy Division of ROSATOM, the leader in electric energy generation both in Russia and abroad. It is the largest generating company in Russia and the 2nd largest in the world in terms of the volume of nuclear generating capacity. The Concern includes all 10 Russian nuclear power plants, which grant the status of branches, as well as enterprises that support the activities of the generating company. In total, 35 power units with a total installed capacity of 27.9 GW are operated at 10 Russian nuclear power plants. At present, the nuclear power plants of Russia produce about 19% of the total electric energy in the country.
