Global safety assessment at Electricite de France

To assess the management of safety, radiological protection and the environment of the units under its responsibility (nuclear power plants and national units), the management of the Nuclear Power Operations Division has created a Nuclear Inspectorate that is in charge of verification operations. These verifications are carried out as part of overall or specific safety assessments. The aim of this presentation is to demonstrate the originality of the process that has been established to carry out overall safety assessments, to identify the conditions of success, to show how this process has developed over time and how it forms a coherent part of the Division's piloting process. These assessments are based on the safety assessment reference systems validated by the management of the Nuclear Power Operations Division. These reference systems are implemented completely, which represents the assessment of over 400 performances on the basis of on-the-ground observations during operation and outage, discussions with operators from the full range of professions, and a thorough examination of related documentation. The assessment team consists of 14 professional inspectors and around nine peers from different nuclear power plants. The assessment covers eight different areas: safety management, operation and operation training centre, maintenance, technical support (operating experience, engineering, modifications, fuel and core physics), radiological protection, environment, fire protection and housekeeping. Each area is divided into topics, which are then subdivided into objectives. Each topic is assessed according to seven different levels, from 'excellent' down to 'unacceptable'. These subdivisions allow comparison between the various power plants and monitoring of each power plant from one assessment to the next. These assessments provide the managers of the Division and the power plants with elements that will help them to improve the level of safety in the form of recommendations, suggestions and best practices. In addition to the conformity assessment described above, the inspectors provide their view of the socio-organizational aspect of the site and, in particular, the strengths and weaknesses of the organizational structure, accompanied by an assessment of the risks that these weaknesses could develop into. Since early 2004, the management of the Nuclear Power Operations Division has approached WANO for four or five peers from abroad to be integrated into the team of EDF inspectors to bring a more international and complementary outlook to the global safety assessments. (author)