The Role of the IAEA in the Extension of Operation Life of MVM Paks NPP

The MVM Paks NPP (hereafter: plant) being the only nuclear power plant in Hungary, is playing a special role in the energy-policy. The plant is a nationalized production capacity that is providing at around 40% of domestic energy production at the lowest price. The plant is an essential governmental property in the development of the national economy too and it is a potential tool for controlling the energy market as well. Also, the safe Long Term Operation (LTO) of the plant serves the conservation of intellectual and working potential of the country in the fields related with the use of nuclear energy. The above factors define the role of nuclear energy in the national energy policy and outline the strategy to be followed in the field of nuclear energy application in order to provide conditions for continuous development of the national economy. The IAEA's cooperation on the LTO preparation provided an international scientific and technical background by transferring the leading international knowledge related to safe LTO and practice to the License Renewal (USA). This cooperation also supervised the License Renewal Project's activities, documents and reports to check and verify the conformity to the best international practices. At the plant the LTO related tasks had been launched in 2000 and those will be accomplished by the end of 2017. During this term the plant received a couple of IAEA contributions for the extension of operation life of the plant (e.g. TC programmes, SALTO peer review missions, etc.) Additionally the results of the IAEA IGALL programme helped the development of the applied and currently used Aging Management Programmes (AMPs). The paper outlines these entire factors and describes the IAEA's role for the successful licensing of the planned operational life extension. (author)