30 Jul (NucNet): Unit 4 of the Bugey nuclear power plant in central France can continue into its fourth decade of commercial operation, subject to the implementation of a number of increased safety requirements, French nuclear safety authority ASN (Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire) has said.
The decision takes into consideration the need to abide with new safety standards issued following the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident in March 2011, ASN said in a statement.
ASN said information from the Fukushima-Daiichi accident will take a decade to analyse and might lead to new or amended safety requirements. Learning all the lessons from Fukushima-Daiichi will be “a long process” lasting several years, ASN said.
ASN also said Bugey-4 was the subject of a number of requirements that needed to be met by 31 December 2012. Those requirements included drawing up proposals to ensure that “the fundamental functions” of safety would be maintained in extreme situations.
In June 2012, ASN said in a report that the country’s nuclear facilities are safe, but their “robustness” to extreme situations must be increased beyond existing safety margins “as rapidly as possible” including new emergency bunkers and a rapid intervention force for nuclear plants.
At the time, ASN said it would be asking licensees to adopt a range of measures designed to protect plants against a combination of natural phenomena “of an exceptional scale”. The measures are also designed to protect facilities against “severe accident situations” following the prolonged loss of electrical power or heat sinks.
ASN announced its decision on Bugey-4 yesterday following the third 10-year safety review of the 880-megawatt pressurised water reactor (PWR) unit.
Bugey-4 is the fifth French nuclear power plant unit to undergo a safety review 30 years after its initial commissioning. The others were Tricastin-1 Fessenheim-1 Bugey-2 and Fessenheim-2.
The Bugey nuclear power station, operated by state-controlled EDF, has four commercially operational PWRs and one gas-cooled reactor that was permanently shut down in 1994.
In France, a licence to operate a nuclear reactor does not specify a predetermined limit in time. However, the law requires that the operator holds a safety review every 10 years after which ASN makes a final decision.
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To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Dalton at david.dalton@nucnet.org
