BRATISLAVA, January 3, (WEBNOVINY) — Slovakia’s nuclear facilities do not show shortcomings that would require immediate adoption of urgent measures for safe operation, according to the national report on outcomes of stress tests at nuclear installations in the country published by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority. “During the assessment process, the authority did not identify any shortcomings that would require an instant solution,” said the head of the regulator Marta Ziakova.
Based on the results of the tests, further safe operation of neither the functioning units nor of the new blocks under construction was questioned, said Ziakova. “The identified measures that were defined in the report will further boost the current level of nuclear safety,” adds the office in the report that it sent to the European Commission at the year’s end.
The national report contains results of stress tests at Slovakia’s nuclear facilities voluntarily executed by its operator, the power utility Slovenske Elektrarne. The authority reported that during stress tests, extraordinary external circumstances have been analyzed such as an earthquake, floods, and consequences of other events due to which a power plant might suffer multiple loss of security functions. Also combinations of events were assessed including blackout, long-term water outage and blackout as the result of extreme climatic conditions and management of serious accidents.
Due to tense time schedule set for the stress tests, the nuclear regulatory authority will demand further systemic and complex evaluation of the robustness of the project and power plant’s resistance towards external and internal risks mainly towards those that can lead to a complete outage and a loss of the possibility of cooling, says the authority in the report. Also a possible simultaneous accident at several blocks has to be considered together with a grave damage to infrastructure taken into account as well. “All implemented modifications have to be reflected in the amended safety report,” added the nuclear watchdog.
Within the evaluation of the risk of possible earthquake and possible damages the authority says that there are not tectonic rifts in Slovakia likely to cause an extreme earthquake comparable with a catastrophic earthquake in Japan. Despite this, the issue of seismic activity is thoroughly considered in the project, operation and safety modernization and are also part of the stress tests. A system of seismic monitoring has been installed in individual localities for early identification of seismic activity that could potentially influence nuclear power plants, comments the authority.
Stress tests also addressed possible flood risks. Given the location of nuclear power plants in the central area of the country and their distance from drinking water reservoirs, flooding of localities from sources of surface water from rivers or lakes can be rule out, which is also the case with floods caused by ground water. The office also says that resistance of nuclear power plants to meteorological extremes is acceptable as well.
In the report on results of the stress tests, the Nuclear Regulatory Authority recommended Slovenske Elektrarne to harmonize next steps with other operators of similar types of power plants and to take into consideration results of the stress tests and checks by other partners. “The final scope of the required improvements and the time schedule of their implementation will be harmonized with other EU countries,” said the authority.
European nuclear regulatory authorities have agreed on the final version of stress tests on nuclear reactors in the EU with the aim to prevent the critical situation experienced by Japan after the March earthquake and tsunami. EU countries agreed at the end of May that all nuclear power plants on the territory of the European Community will undergo stress tests.
SITA
