On 31 August, 2018, a technical support mission of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) has been completed at Smolensk NPP. A team of international experts from Great Britain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the WANO Moscow Center shared their experience in the field of maintaining NPP safety systems’ reliability in operation with the Smolensk workers.

“The WANO mission is to maximize the reliability and safety of NPP operation by exchanging information among the Association members, comparing the results of their work and following the best example”, Galim Musin, an advisor of the WANO Moscow Center, emphesised at the opening.

The WANO experts visited the standby diesel power plant of the support systems workshop, the turbine room of the turbine shop, the 2nd pover unit main control panel, got acquainted with the process of testing the sprinkler cooling system pump, interviewed the operating personnel. During the discussions, the experts shared their experience in improving the security systems’ reliability.

“We thank our colleagues for their openness, we have gathered a lot of useful information, which, undeniably, will be reflected in our further work to improve the safety systems during the NPP power unit operation”, the Acting Manager of Smolensk NPP Vadim Skirda noted at the final meeting.

“The work with security systems at Smolensk NPP is organized in accordance with regulations and instructions: we conduct general trials, test these systems, carry out their maintenance and repair. They are regularly checked by the supervisory authorities”, Evgeniy Kirilenko, a leading engineer of the department for using the operational experience and investigating violations of Smolensk NPP, said. “Great attention is paid to calculating the reliability of this equipment. It is important for us to find out which safety system reliability programs are implemented at foreign NPPs, what calculation methods they use to assess the risks of failure of this equipment.”

Based on the results of the work, the experts noted sush positive aspect as the use of a risk monitoring program at Smolensk NPP, a qualitative approach to investigating mishaps, holding a high-level briefing before the beginning of the work, using modern portable diagnostic tools to assess the equipment condition. They also proposed some measures to improve the work in this area at Smolensk NPP.

The official report of the technical support mission team will be handed over to the Nuclear Power Plant in a month, and in a year the WANO will ask the Smolensk workers to assess their progress on on these issues.