‘We’ve got to focus on the existing plants, stick to the fundamentals,’ says outgoing chairman
The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) is rolling out a new service to provide more frequent feedback to members – as it steps up its work to support nuclear operators and new entrants in further increasing the safety and reliability of nuclear power plants worldwide.
Tom Mitchell, WANO’s outgoing chairman, said the service, called enhanced performance monitoring, is the result of a mandate from its members for “clear, simple targets on how best to shape the industry’s future to help members more rapidly and sustainably improve performance”.
He said WANO’s major feedback to operators has been at intervals of four years, but this will now be switched to “more frequent feedback with better insights at times about what they could do to continue on the journey to excellence”.
Mitchell, whose previous roles included six years as chief executive officer at Canada’s nuclear utility Ontario Power Generation, said: “In the past, our interactions have been on an every four-years basis. It was the general feeling that four years is a long time. Members said: ‘Can you do something? What can you do to help us give us more frequent feedback and maybe better insights?’”
Implementation of the new service involves putting together a set of tools that will allow WANO to provide that more frequent and high-quality feedback, Mitchell said. “Where we are in that process is that we have completed the development work. We’ve completed the tool set, and now we have to populate now the tool set with the information”.
He said WANO is on “an information and data collection endeavour” which should be completed at the end of this year. “We are in the process right now of transitioning to the new operational model. It’s well underway”.
“The feedback that we’ve had is that they [WANO members] really do like this more frequent contact. But it really means we’ve had to reorganise how we deliver the service.”
WANO’s incoming chairman José Gago, who spent 10 years as director-general of Spain’s Asociación Nuclear Ascó-Vandellós II (ANAV) and has been ANAV’s governor at the WANO Paris centre since 2012, said WANO will continue to have “a full deep assessment” of each of our member’s plants every four years “because we cannot do it other way”.
‘More Information About Their Needs’
But WANO, a not-for-profit international safety organisation whose members operate around 450 nuclear units in over 30 countries and areas, will have more frequent interaction with every plant. “We will have more frequent information on the performance of the plant, and thereby we will get more information about their needs and work together with them,” Gago said. “That’s the first shift.”
Gago, who has also been president of the Spanish Nuclear Society and a member of the nuclear industry group Foro Nuclear’s board of directors, said the second major change at WANO is related to new nuclear players. He said most new nuclear plants are being built by existing WANO members, but “we are aware that there are many new entrants, new players, new technologies, and we are getting ready for that”.
He said: “We are dedicating most of our resources to what is real today, which is the existing operating plants. That’s our major focus. But we are dedicating some resources to those who are getting closer to start operations or take a decision to build.
Mitchell said: “We can't just focus on everything that’s new and shiny. We’ve got to focus on the existing plants, stick to the fundamentals. We have got to stay focused on nuclear safety and not get distracted.”
But he added that WANO is increasing its outreach to new entrants and has invited some of the potential new members to participate. “We want them to feel like they are potentially part of the nuclear community and that there is a support structure to help them run their plants when they get to that stage.”
