Radiation protection in EDF nuclear power plants

The collective dose received by EDF staff and employees of subcontractors has been steadily decreasing since 1991. This reduction can be explained by 3 reasons: i) the application of ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) principle to radiation protection, ii) the extension of time interval between 2 fuel loadings for 1300 MWe type reactors which leads to fewer reactor shutdowns, and iii) the setting of simple refueling shutdowns (ASR) which allows a sharp reduction in the number of maintenance operations. The average collective dose is still higher for 900 MWe than for 1300 MWe reactors. As for individual dose, 'nobody over 20 mSv except in exceptional situations' comes almost true. The parallel decrease of individual dose for both EDF and subcontractors shows that radiation protection measures are fairly applied to any worker whatever his status is. (A.C.)