Safety and Radiation Protection of the French nuclear park in 2016. IRSN's position - Mission report 2017

As part of its activities, the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) carries out a continuous technical watch on safety and radiation protection for the 58 nuclear pressurised-water reactors currently operated by EDF. This work involves analysing significant events concerning these reactors that are reported by licensees to ASN, the French Nuclear Safety Authority. The purpose of this analysis is to draw lessons to provide IRSN with additional feedback. IRSN carries out in-depth analysis of the most important events. It also performs a more general examination of these events to highlight overall lessons and trends and to identify areas for improvement that call for particularly close attention on the part of licensees. The results of these overall analyses for 2016 are presented in this mission report. Content: 1 - The French park of nuclear reactors in operation; 2 - Global assessment of the safety and radiation protection of the reactors in operation: events declaration related elements, trends in operation safety, trends in operation radiation protection; 3 - Events, incidents, anomalies: tightness defects in the Bugey 5 reactor containment, dysfunction of the Saint-Alban NPP high-voltage circuit-breakers, fabrication anomalies at the steam-generators of some reactors in operation; 4 - Significant evolutions: improvement of the double-envelope containments tightness, improvements made to the reactors in operation following the Fukushima Daiichi accident