The Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) has participated in the 70th meeting of the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), held by videoconference on the 8th and 9th of December. The CSN delegation has been headed by the commissioner Francisco Castejón, who has been accompanied by Carlos Castelao, head of the Research and Knowledge Management Unit, and other members of the regulatory body. It is a very useful committee for the exchange of knowledge between regulatory bodies.

The meeting began yesterday with the welcoming remarks of the CSNI Chairman, Jean-Christophe Niel, general director of the Institute of Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety of France (IRSN, for its acronym in French) and the intervention of the director general of the NEA , William Magwood.

Committee activities

Following the usual dynamics of the meetings of this Committee, the meeting continued with the review of the progress status and the planning of the activities entrusted, as well as the approval of new ones, based on the presentations and proposals of the working groups. At this 70th meeting, the CSNI has approved 12 reports and 12 new activities. The plan and schedule for prioritization in 2022 and the Committee's work program have also been presented.

Thereafter, the activities of the NEA were updated, highlighting the joint security research projects within this agency sponsored by the CSNI and a brief description of the activities of the CNRA was made, including several events of interest selected by the Working Group of Operating Experience (WGOE).

During the meeting, the activities carried out with other organizations were also presented; with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or the report on recent activities with the European Commission (EC).

Work program

On this occasion, the CSNI Program Review Group (PRG) presented the group's results as the presentations of the working groups progressed.

Regarding the Working Group on Electrical Power Systems (WGELEC), it presented two reports and three new activities, among which the practices in the management of geomagnetic induced currents on electrical systems, in which the CSN participation stands out.

Within the scope of the Human and Organizational Factors Group (WGHOF), of the four new activities presented, two will be dedicated to analyse the nuclear sector response to Covid-19 from an organisational and human perspective  and compiling a catalog of training in human and organizational factors.

In relation to the Working Group on the Analysis and Management of Accidents (WGAMA), the farewell of the expert Luis Enrique Herranz, a CIEMAT expert, who has been at the head of the group after many years chairing it, and the gratitude expressed on behalf of the committee for his coordination work and leadership at the head of the group stands out and also the approval of a report on the application of computational fluid dynamics methods (CFD) to safety analysis.

On the other hand, several research projects under the NEA presented their respective final reports to the CSNI, being of special interest those corresponding to the CODAP project, on operating experience of components, degradation and aging program, and to the ICDE project, dedicated to the collection and analysis of common cause failures. In addition, a new cooperative project, FACE, has been presented for approval, which will aim to obtain data and information on the Fukushima Daiichi accident and evaluate them to facilitate the planning of decommissioning activities.

Finally, the Senior Expert Group on Key Data Sets Preservation (SEGPD) informed the main committee about the first months of work of the new activity of the CSNI aimed at issuing recommendations for the better preservation of key experimental data. Likewise, the status of two recently created expert groups on fire research and on small modular reactors (SMRs) was reported, in which the CSN has appointed experts and which will begin their activity in early 2022.

After holding this committee, the commissioner Francisco Castejón has highlighted the importance of this research committee, highlighting the intense Spanish participation, especially the CSN, in activities valuable for nuclear safety, such as electrical issues, related activities with human factors in which we must encourage our participation, and research activities in nuclear accidents, to minimize their consequences, which have had an enormous boost under the direction of Luis Herranz, an expert at the Ciemat in these recent years. Furthermore, he has declared that the projects framed in the CSNI generate very useful knowledge for the regulatory activities of the CSN.

About the CSNI

The Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations is an international group framed within the NEA whose main mission is to assist member countries in maintaining and further developing the scientific and technical knowledge base required to assess the safety of nuclear reactors and fuel cycle facilities.

The CSNI is composed of nine working groups that cover subjects such as risk assessment, accident analysis and management, aging and integrity of structures and components, organizational and human factors, safety of the fuel cycle, electrical systems and external events management. The Committee is made up of senior scientists and engineers, with broad responsibilities for safety technology and research programmes, and representatives from regulatory authorities.

In this regard, the CSN and other Spanish institutions actively and significantly contribute to most CSNI groups, programs and projects. In particular, a CSN representative is one of 6 members of the CSNI Program Review Group, which performs quality assurance and scientific support functions in planning and decision-making for this important Committee.

* Check here the glossary of technical terms *