After the accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan on 11 March 2011, the UK government commissioned Dr Weightman, Chief Nuclear Inspector for the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), to technically review the incident and identify any lessons to be learned.
In parallel, the EU called for a programme of Stress Tests across the member countries with each nuclear operator submitting details of its safety assessments to its nuclear regulators. The ONR has published its National Report to the EU outlining the results of its review of the stress testing programme.
EDF Energy is committed to supporting this programme and learning from the events at Fukushima, and we have published our Stress Test reports for each of our eight nuclear power plants in the UK. In addition we have produced a Stress Test report for EDF Energy’s proposed twin EPR reactor site at Hinkley Point C. These reports can be found on this page.
The Stress Test thoroughly examined our existing station safety cases against potential events that have a very low probability but high impact. The actual events at Fukushima have been used to highlight potential risks. These include the directly relevant hazards such as earthquake and flooding (from tsunamis and other sources) and other extreme weather conditions, potentially more relevant to the UK such as high winds and extreme ambient temperatures.
Each report includes:
- scrutiny of the existing safety justifications
- details of events that could breach the safety margins of the nuclear power plants
- the physical safety measures in place
- operator training
- procedural arrangements in place, for example how the nuclear power plant deals with and manages an incident.
Conclusions
Within the scope of the Stress Tests we have identified no shortfalls in the operational safety cases of our existing fleet. Our entire fleet of operational nuclear power plants are safe to continue operating as they are. However, we have identified ways to further enhance our current robust position. The next two years will see the delivery of the additional enhancements outlined in the Stress Tests to increase the safety margins of our nuclear power plants even further.
In terms of the twin reactors being proposed for Hinkley Point C, the Stress Tests have shown that the proposed EPRs at HPC are robust and would continue to be safe even after situations that go beyond those considered plausible in the UK. We will, as a result of these assessments, consider adopting additional measures to increase our resilience even further. This will be assessed further as our design develops and is eventually finalised.
EU Stress Tests
The following documents are in PDF format.