After its initial analyses following the Fukushima accident in March 2011, EDF supplemented its crisis management organisation with a national team capable of quickly delivering material and human assistance to a site in great difficulty. This system, called the Nuclear Rapid Action Force (FARN), has had many simulation exercises from regional bases located at Civaux, Paluel, Dampierre and Bugey and can be sent to a unit at any site in difficulty. The FARN is capable of a simultaneous response at six units on a single site.
The operational safety of nuclear facilities is taken into consideration from the initial design stage, and is regularly monitored, together with the implementation of an employee mobilization policy and large-scale investment programmes. The Group’s Nuclear safety policy is incorporated into training for both EDF employees and subcontractors.
Nuclear safety is subject to internal controls (annual reviews, internal control plans and nuclear inspection audits in France) and external controls (peer reviews between corporate members of WANO and OSART audits conducted by experts from the IAEA).
In France, the safety of nuclear facilities is controlled by the ASN. Events are classified on a scale from one to seven, with seven being the most serious, called the INES scale(1). Incidents of no consequence for nuclear safety are called “level 0 events”. Since the establishment of a scale of this kind in France in 1987, no level 3 event (serious incident – very low external emission, and exposure of the public representing a fraction of regulatory limits) or above has occurred in the French Nuclear fleet.
The ASN also approved the creation of an additional crisis management system, the Nuclear Rapid Action Force (FARN) following additional safety evaluations carried out by EDF after the Fukushima accident.
As in 2018, no major safety or radiation protection events were recorded in France.
In 2019, EDF’s Nuclear and Thermal Fleet Department (DPNT) in France declared 738 significant safety events (ESS) classified at INES 0, 87 ESS at INES 1, and 3 stONES 2.
Overall, the results for 2019 improved compared to those obtained in 2018, with the average number of unclassified events (level 0) up to 12.72 ESS per reactor compared with 10.05 in 2018 while the average number of level 1 events per reactor increased slightly to 1.50 versus 1.27 in 2018.
The number of automatic reactor trips (AAR) reached 0.53 per reactor (0.31 in 2018, 0.38 in 2017, 0.48 in 2016 and 0.66 in 2015).
The 2019 detailed results on nuclear safety are published in the annual report created by the General Inspector for Nuclear Safety and are available on the Internet.
The mobilisation of ground players has allowed a continuous improvement of performance on the protection of employees against the effects of ionising radiation.
Thus, the average annual collective dose of all workers, both employees of EDF and outside companies intervening in power plants, has been halved in less than ten years. In 2019, the average collective dose was 0.74 man-Sievert per reactor (or a collective annual dose of 43 man-Sieverts). The collective dosimetry in 2019 is compared with 2018 (38.8 man-Sieverts) due to a higher activity level (dosimetry/time spent on the zone remains stable). EDF is proactively implementing an ALARA (As Low as Reasonably Achievable) policy to limit the collective dose in parallel with an increasing workload involved in the industrial project on the fleet in operation.
EDF is furthermore committed to continuing to lower exposure to radiation below the regulatory limit of 20 mSv over 12 rolling months for the whole body. Accordingly, throughout 2019 and over 12 rolling months, no participant (among the EDF employees and contractors) was exposed to an individual dose of higher than 14 mSv.
In the coming years, given the levels already achieved, efforts will have to be focused on power plants with the poorest dosimetric results, in particular by cleaning their circuits.
The average annual normative volume for nuclear fuel used by reactors in the EDF fleet in France is approximately 1,200 tonnes (of heavy metals: natural enriched uranium, enriched reprocessed uranium, plutonium) of which approximately 1,080 tonnes corresponds to ENU fuel (Enriched Natural Uranium), 110 tonnes to MOx fuel (produced from reprocessed plutonium) and 10 tonnes to ERU fuel (enriched processed uranium).
The nuclear fuel cycle encompasses all industrial operations in France and abroad which enable the supply of the fuel to generate energy in a reactor, then to unload and process it. The cycle can be broken down into three stages:
EDF coordinates all the operations in the fuel cycle. Generally speaking, upstream and downstream operations are carried out by subcontractors or suppliers, generally on the basis of multi-year contracts. EDF acquires most of the raw materials as uranium concentrates (U3O8), with transformation into more processed products carried out by industrial operators through service contracts (fluorination, enrichment and manufacture), and provides core cycle operations. EDF is the owner in most cases and is responsible for the fuel and materials it uses throughout all different stages of the cycle.
(1) International Nuclear Event Scale.
