On June 27-30, for three days, a preparatory visit of WANO (World Association of Nuclear Operators) Moscow centre experts was held at Balakovo NPP. They visited the plant within the framework of its preparation for the coming peer review, which would be held by an international group of experts – representatives of other nuclear power plants, WANO members.

Peer reviews are one of the main lines of WANO activity, because studying the activity of a particular nuclear plant in various directions and interviewing the personnel, colleagues-nuclear scientists from different countries get acquainted with the accumulated experience and share their own achievements in the improvement of production processes and ensuring safe operation of power units. A report reflecting the plant benefits and the aspects to be improved that will be opened for the wide public this year, will become the result of such reviews.

Balakovo NPP was the first nuclear plant in Russia to undergo such a review in 1993 and it repeated the procedure in 2003. This year WANO experts will check up the plant activity on 10 directions: organization and administration, operation, repair, engineering support, radiation protection, operation experience, chemical technologies, training and qualification, fire protection and emergency response.

In the course of the visit the experts visited power unit No. 1 where scheduled preventive maintenance was in progress, got acquainted with operation of the NPP education and training centre and its system of personnel training and advanced training, and Deputy Director of the Moscow centre of WANO Sergey Vybornov informed Balakovo specialists of the methods of the future review and told them about its peculiarities.

He noted that after the situation with Fukushima NPP the conditions the nuclear power industry operates in have changed together with the requirements to it from the point of view of safety provision. “These changes also demand improvements in the work of WANO”, S. Vybornov emphasized. “The mission of collective responsibility for nuclear plant safety has been announced, but at present it requires a certain perfection both in the activity of the entire organization and each of the NPPs included into WANO structure”.