The Balakovo NPP ended the working visit of a team of international experts from the Moscow Center of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO). This mission is one of the stages of a large-scale peer review of WANO, which will be held at the plant in June 2019.

During the five-day work, the experts conducted observations in two areas of the upcoming review: “Staff training”, “Repair and maintenance”. They visited the power unit No. 4 and checked worksites of the NPP and of the contracting organizations which are involved in the collaborative works concerning safety performance. They studied sets of regulatory documentation at worksites and monitored the conducting of repairs.

“The experts paid special attention to the safety system in the reactor compartment,” - Sergey Shekhorkin, Chief Specialist at the Balakovo NPP commented. – The partners are well-qualified and have good knowledge of IAEA’s documentation. They have a large practical experience in nuclear industry. Experts are often not only at Russian, but also at foreign nuclear power plants; we exchanged experiences with them. It was interesting to get acquainted with their approaches to maintenance and repair in terms of accepted international safety standards and technical novelty”.

WANO experts also monitored the actions of the unit control room’s personnel in the course of emergency response drill on a full-scale simulator. It was important for them to see the internal communication in the shift, how fully and promptly information interaction of the staff takes place while practicing actions in a conventional abnormal situation.

“One of the objectives of this mission is to teach the instructors at the Balakovo NPP Training Center international methodology, according to which the Crew Performance Observations team (CPO) conducts monitoring of the work of the control room personnel on a full-scale simulator, - Maxim Dyrovatyi, Deputy Head of the Peer Review Team, Advisor of the WANO Moscow Center noted. - This practice began to be widely used two years ago. Since 2020, all nuclear power plants in the world will pass the SRO exam during WANO peer reviews. We made sure that the Balakovo NPP has all the necessary technical capabilities for this exam”.

WANO experts noted the achieved mutual understanding and open dialogue with the administration and the staff of the nuclear power plant as an example of well-coordinated teamwork and a success factor for the large peer review scheduled for June. The team of experts referred the results of their observations with recommendations for further improvements concerning safety to the administration of the Balakovo NPP.