Development of an Owner Engineer's independent capability in NPP safety and licensing

As Owner's Engineer to Electrabel, the Belgian utility which owns and operates the 7 NPPs in Belgium, Tractebel Energy Engineering has gained considerable experience in the field of ten-yearly safety overhauls of NPPs since 1983. It has developed a methodology leading to proposing corrective actions by means of a global and integrated approach in which safety improvement costs are optimized. Safety issues addressed during those projects encompass the writing of Probabilistic Safety Assessment studies, post-TMI recommendations implementation, the installation of autocatalytic recombiners, accident studies, protection against pressurized thermal shock, impact of flooding of internal or external origin, implementation of severe accident management guidelines, re-evaluation of the environment, verification of extreme climate conditions, updating of the Safety Analysis Reports, operation review. (author)