Findings on Oconee

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a 'yellow finding' after investigating the provision of standby shutdown systems at the Oconee nuclear power plant. Under the NRC's colour coded system, this means the circumstances had 'substantial safety significance'

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the NRC's findings were related to the Oconee control room. This was not the case and WNN apologises for the error.

Oconee (Image: Areva)

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a 'yellow finding' after investigating the provision of standby shutdown systems at the Oconee nuclear power plant. Under the NRC's colour coded system, this means the circumstances had 'substantial safety significance'.

The regulator investigated three apparent violations by Duke Energy concerning the standby shutdown systems at Oconee, which would be required to maintain essential nuclear safety in the exceptional case that normal and emergency shutdown systems failed.

The investigation's yellow finding related to Duke's "failure to ensure the standby shutdown systems remained operable." A 'white' finding of 'low to moderate safety significance' related to the company's failure to identify and correct a degradation in the systems of Oconee 2 and 3 after the same problem had already been given a 'white' finding in unit 1.

The NRC's other colour codes are 'green' for 'very low safety significance' and 'red' for 'high safety significance'.

Duke was also close to receiving a fine for "materially inaccurate information being provided to the NRC," but the regulator said that a civil penalty was not levied because plant staff had taken corrective action and the plant had not been under heightened scrutiny.

The Oconee plant features three Babcock & Wilcox pressurized water reactors built in South Carolina in the early 1970s.
 

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News