Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Safety Benchmark of Borssele Nuclear Power Plant
| Auteur | Borssele Benchmark Commission, P.Nabuurs, J.Lyons, R.Stück, B.Tomic, A.M.Versteegh |
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1-01-8-20-75.pdf |
| Datum | december 2018 |
| Classificatie | 1.01.8.20/75 (BORSSELE - ALGEMEEN) |
| Opmerking | Available at government website, with Dutch summary, here |
| Voorkant | 
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Uit de publicatie:
Safety Benchmark of Borssele
Nuclear Power Plant
Second report of the Borssele Benchmark Committee – 2018
Summary and Conclusions
The task of the Borssele Benchmark Committee To establish an expert opinion on the safety
is to determine whether the Elektriciteits level of KCB, as compared with the other 236
Produktiemaatschappij Zuid-Nederland (EPZ) water-cooled and water-moderated power
ensures that ”Borssele nuclear power plant reactors in operation in the EU, USA and Canada,
(Kerncentrale Borssele – KCB) continues to be the Committee had to develop its own methodo-
among the twenty-five percent safest water- logy. There are no internationally harmonised
cooled and water-moderated power reactors evaluations available for all safety aspects of a
in the European Union, the United States of nuclear power reactor that expresses the safety
America and Canada. As far as possible, safety in one well-defined number. Requirements for
shall be assessed on the basis of quantified nuclear safety are established in most countries
performance indicators. If quantitative in line with international safety standards of
comparison is not possible for the design, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
operation, maintenance, ageing and safety and (within the EU) with the guides set up by
management, the comparison shall be made the Western European Nuclear Regulators
on the basis of a qualitative assessment by Association (WENRA) and the European Nuclear
the Committee.” Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG). However,
the responsibility lies with the national regula-
This condition is part of an agreement not to tory authorities and despite the efforts of the
close the plant in 2013 – as was politically international organisations to harmonize these
intended – but to allow it, in principle, to requirements, national differences remain, and
continue operation until 31 December 2033, the importance attached to various safety
if safety requirements are met as stated in aspects is not necessarily uniform.
regulations and license.
In principle, advanced Probabilistic Safety
This agreement was formalised in a covenant, Analysis (PSA) would make it possible to combine
which also included the installation of the all relevant safety aspects of design and opera-
Borssele Benchmark Committee to evaluate tions into one model. However, PSA methodo-
whether KCB meets this condition. logies have not been standardized, and PSAs
have not been conducted for all nuclear power
This document represents the second report of plants. For those plants that do have PSAs, not
the Committee. all of them are available to the Committee. To
develop PSAs would require an enormous effort
Since the publication of the first Committee and would be hindered by the unavailability of
report, some reactors have been permanently standardised reactor specific information and
shut down. Therefore, the list of reactors was data for all the 237 peer reactors.
revised to include only the reactors still in
operation by 31 December 2016 (the cut-off Furthermore, opinions about what is important
date set by the Committee for its assessment). for nuclear safety evolve due to operating
The final list of reactors involved in the bench- experience, including root cause analyses of
mark contains a total of 237 reactors. incidents.
Ranking reactor safety is, therefore, a compli- Secondly, the wider use of the Safety Aspects
cated, if not impossible task with a time- of Long Term Operation (SALTO) review mission
dependent outcome. Nevertheless, the made it possible to conduct the evaluation of
Committee is convinced that it developed a ageing using the recently refined and interna-
meaningful methodology based on all available tionally consistent methodology developed
information in combination with expert assess- by the IAEA for SALTO review. The use of the
ment, that could be used to compare the safety findings in SALTO reports is now the basis of
of KCB with the other reactors the Committee the ageing benchmark, in a way comparable to
had to assess. Operational safety evaluations that uses the
IAEA OSART findings (chapter 5).
For the second report, the Committee retained
the overall structure of the methodology Thirdly, the increased worldwide consciousness
previously developed, and improved it to reflect about the importance of safety culture is
recent developments. In particular, three recent reflected in a more consistent and standardized
developments led to refinements and additions: approach (chapter 8).
Firstly, post-Fukushima studies and their follow Schematically the Committee opted for the
up brought new insights about design safety, approach as shown in Figure 1-1 (see page 8).
leading to refinement and extension of the
design benchmark methodology (chapter 4) and
a separate evaluation of siting (chapter 6).